About

Born in Nigeria in 1984, Inua Ellams is writer and curator. He is a cross disciplinary artist, an internationally touring performer, a poet, playwright, screenwriter, graphic artist & designer. His published books of poetry include Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales, The Wire-Headed Heathen, #Afterhours, and The Actual. His first play The 14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival. His plays include Barber Shop Chronicles, Three Sister and The Half-God of Rainfall. He is currently touring Search Party, An Evening With An Immigrant and working on several commissions across stage and screen. 

In graphic art & design, online and in print, he tries to mix the old with the new, juxtaposing texture and pigment with flat colour and vector graphics. He lives and works from London, where he founded and curates the Midnight Run, The R.A.P Party, Poetry +Film / Hack, and other live events. He is an ambassador for The Ministry of Stories and The London Library, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Royal Society of Arts, and board members of The Poetry Translation Centre, Complicite Theatre, The Royal Society of Literature and Cheltenham Literature Festival. In 2023, He was honoured with an MBE for Services To The Arts, and an Honorary Doctorate from University Of The Arts, London. You can download his CV from here.

Poetry: page / stage / CURATION

Inua’s first pamphlet of poems was published in 2005, two years after he began performing poetry on stage heavily Influenced by hip hop and classical poetry. Musicality and heightened mellifluous speech mixed with Nigerian storytelling has come to typify his work. Once described as the love child of Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) and John Keats, his reoccurring themes are Identity, Displacement and Destiny.  He has performed at The Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre, mainstream radio and t.v., toured nationally and internationally performing in Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, New Zealand, America and in England, at the Glastonbury, Latitude, The London Word, Richmond Literature, Aldeburgh Poetry Festivals. In 2015, he was The National Poetry Library's poet in residence.

His poetry is widely published, notably in his pamphlets: Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales (flipped eye), Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars (Flipped Eye), The Wire-Headed Heathen (Akashic Books), #Afterhours (Nine Arches), in The Poetry Review Summer 2016, Best British Poetry (Salt) 2015, The Salt Book of Younger Poets 2012,  Chorus (MTV Books), City State (Penned in the Margins) TEN The New Wave (Bloodaxe), and in magazines such as Poetry Paper, Magma, Pen International, Wasafiri and Oxford Poetry, Poetry Review and Poetry. Inua won the Live Canon International Poetry Competition 2014, The Winchester Poetry Prize 2018, The Magma Poetry Competition 2019, The Hay Medal for Poetry 2020. 2020 saw the publication of his first full collection The Actual and he is slowly working on the follow up, Of All The Boys of Plateau Private School.

Inua founded several live literature events to put poetry and words centre stage. These include: The R.A.P Party - Rhythm And Poetry Party - a nostalgic, no-clutter, no-fuss, straight-up evening of hip-hop-inspired poems and favourite hip-hop songs, Poetry + Film Hack - which presents both artforms in collaboration, by adding live poetry readings to the viewing experience of magnificent films. Reel Mix - where 5 directors turn the same screen play into film, thereby showcasing the possibilities of multiple perspectives and interpretation.

plays: Stage / Radio / ScreeN

Inua’s first play, The 14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Festival. Performed by Inua, it debuted at The Arcola Theatre and transferred to England’s National Theatre where it played to sold out audiences before national and international tours. His most recent, the critically acclaimed Black T-shirt Collection was a passionate, searing, modern fable about two foster brothers building a global t-shirt brand. It drew on Inua’s own experiences of religious tensions in Nigeria to tell a story about the universal longing for a place to call home.

Inua started writing for other performers with The Riddler - a short play for Theatre 503. His most recent is the critically acclaimed Barber Shop Chronicles (National Theatre). Others include New Dogs (Soho Theatre), The Calm (Royal Shakespeare Company) and The Half-God of Rainfall (Tricycle Theatre) and he has written radio and screen plays for the BBC, Wild Blood and Swipe Slow.  Inua describes his plays as ‘failed poems’; they begin as concepts for poetry where, as he writes, he discovers the subject matter to be better served by a multitude of voices and characters. His work is often produced by Fuel Theatre and he is represented by Tanya Tillet at The Agency.

commissions

a poem for the occasion.

Do you need a poem for a wedding, a birthday, for an inaugural event, film, documentary, TV, online, radio, public art piece, album or a book? Commissions can range from £50 to £10,000, from a haiku to a sonnet, a ballad to an epic, and Inua has a wealth of experiences to draw from.

Past clients include: Good Magazine, Orelabar Brown, Mr & Mrs Augustus-Chase, Chris Ofili, Louis Vuitton, BBC Radio 4, Tate Modern, BBC's Politics Show, Southbank Centre, The Africa Report and Houses of Parliament. To get a quote, drop him a line here.

workshops

learn more. play more. 

Trained by national poetry organisation, Apples & Snakes in their Poets In Education Scheme, Inua further developed his skills as facilitator by travelling the world and running accessible classes for educational, arts and corporate organisations from Malaysia to Australia, Libya to South Africa. He has worked with all ages from Primary to University, teaching various aspects of poetry & playwriting, or using them to teach history, mathematics and philosophy. Download a sample workshop plan here and drop him a line here.

judging

a wholistic approach.

Most recently, Inua worked on the UK National University Poetry Slam, The Roundhouse Poetry Slam, Faber New Poets, Australia’s Poetry Idol 2014 and Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize 2014– judging poetry, prose and life-writing.

His approach is methodical and nuanced; he dissects work into various aspects, scores each individually, before assessing overall, thereby ensuring artworks are praised for their inner workings and the sum of their parts. To find out if he is available, drop him a line here.

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Graphic art & design

Inua tries to mix the old with the new. In graphic art & design, he merges traditionally created images with digital graphics / texture with vector / pencil with pixel. His first love was drawing, the simplicity of graphite on paper and studied towards a carer in visual and fine arts. On request of friend, he sketched a flyer for a live poetry event and began graphic work in 2003 exclusively for poetry communities in inner-city London, designing publicity material, websites, books and visual identities for poets and organisations alike. He later expanded to working with various art forms and organisations as an illustrator, designer and art director.

Clients include: Coca Cola, Airwaves, Puma, The Mayor of London, Blacktronica, Apples & Snakes, Roundhouse, Battersea Arts Centre, The Albany, Southbank Centre, Spread The Word, Frantic Assembly, The Caine Prize, Apples & Snakes, & Avant Garde Dance. To view his online portfolio, please see the website: www.phaze05.com or email phaze05@gmail.com for a quote.

the midnight run

The Midnight Run is a dusk to dawn, cultural walking tour of a city. It gathers strangers and local artists to explore, play and create whilst the city sleeps. It began one autumn evening in London, 2005. Inua Ellams and friend lost patience waiting for a bus and decided to walk the bus route. Six hours later they had drifted across the city, from Battersea to Chelsea, Knights Bridge to Hyde Park, Victoria to Vauxhall and end in the very small hours of the morning. Surprised at how fresh and energised they felt, marvelling at peace and tranquility of the deserted city, the back streets and small courtyards, tiny basketball courts and parks. Inua recreated it the following summer, for 12 hours, from 6pm to 6 am and The Midnight Run was born.

The idea developed and to date, there have been 45 events in London (England) Madrid (Spain), Barcelona (Spain), Milan & Florence (Italy) & Auckland (New Zealand). The Midnight Run is about rediscovering a city with its inhabitants: Not all those who wander are lost. For more information on future events or if you want to get involved, please see the website: www.themnr.com or email inua.ellams@themnr.com.