2000 Blacks

Finalist, 2025 Walcott Prize | Winner, 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize | Gold Medal, 2024 Florida Book Awards in Poetry | Finalist, 2024 Julie Suk Award2000 Blacks probes the complexity of economic and politically motivated migration from Africa, which has been referred to as “African Brain Drain.” In the first sequence of poems, Ajibola Tolase explores Africa’s history and encounters with the Western world, providing poetic insight into the economic instability precipitated by the transatlantic slave trade and exploitation of mineral resources. Moving inward, the second sequence plumbs the poet’s complex relationship with his father, connecting his emotional and then physical absence with the consequences of community disintegration.