August 17, 2025
Natasha Oladokun
Natasha Oladokun is a Black, queer poet and essayist from Virginia. They hold fellowships from Cave Canem, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Elizabeth George Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where they were the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. She is writing her first poetry collection.
No one knows the fragrance of loneliness like a prophet
or a pastor’s kid at the bottom
of her glass, wine-round and shimmering.
It’s all a somewhat-humiliating longing for connection, reaching out into the world the way a poem does. In my work, I think what I’m trying to do is connect with God by reasoning out a problem on the page.