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NITHY KASA was born in Kimpese, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was raised in its capital, Kinshasa and in Galway, in the West of Ireland. Joining the Dublin Writers’ Forum in 2011, she went on to read for Poetry Ireland, Concern, the National University of Ireland, Galway, the Royal Irish Academy, the Cúirt International Festival of Literature and University College Dublin, among others. She took part in the Ó Bhéal series Make a Connection for the European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH) 2018. She was also a guest poet for the 2019 Carlow University’s (USA) MFA Residency at Trinity College Dublin. Her poem ‘Gathering’ was shortlisted for the Red Line Book Festival the same year. She received the Poetry Ireland Commission 2020, with the support of an Arts Council of Ireland Commissions Award, and was shortlisted for The Eavan Boland Emerging Poet Award 2021. Nithy divides her time between Ireland and The Congo.
Shortlisted for the 2023 Pigott Poetry Prize in association with Listowel Writers' Week
In Nithy Kasa’s debut you will find her Dublin, her Galway and the blue note of her childhood in The Congo. Kasa’s poetry is the jazz, the jive, the joy of her life, while never denying the sadness of growing up far from family. If you’d like to see where Irish poetry could be headed, this is a good place to start.
— Fiona Bolger
On the Very Last Note Of The Cadence
the sky tumbled. It crumpled,
in the breaths of a noon turning to night.
Clouds spread on the streets like salts.
The paths of Temple Bar, that are paved
like burnt buns on blackened factory trays,
whited, like paper.
It was the formal call to mulled wines.
Throws with scents of loved ones.
Laughter in burning houses.
A darkness, affable, and vain.
Accent
My accent lingered at bay,
bleaching its skin, hips tucked into a corset,
chewing English.
It cleansed its feet with the salty water
then sat on a boulder, talking to itself,
instructing the tongue how to pronounce,
but it would do otherwise.
‘They will know you got here by boat, not by bicycle.’
The days spent passing verbs through a needle’s orb,
knitting phrases, the pricking made you kneel
to your toddler self.
I came to send this trouble away,
English is not mine to keep
Bringing Home the Negro God
From my absenteeism to Sunday masses,
churchgoers asked,
what happened between me and my god?
Nothing, I said.
We’re on good terms.
We’re just seeing other people for now.
I’m seeing this god —
him, her, they — I don’t know.
It’s nothing serious.
Well, for now anyways.
He’s Alkebulan.
Alkebulan!
No, Mama said. No.
No child of mine will wed a negro god.
No, Mama said. No.
Any god, just not the negro god.
No, Mama said. No.
Do not bring around negro gods.
We were saved from that savagery, child.
We were delivered from that evil.
Saved and civilised we shall remain.
Tiding
The Blackrock Diving Tower of Galway Bay is iconic,
who is to disagree,
she is a sculpture, an afflatus, a muse,
sunset skin railing blue, lips
jotting at the Atlantic.
Her prom the rim of Salthill.
Pilgrim to her at least once in your lifetime
for a dip in the holy font.
If you find the waves coy, don’t go crestfallen,
enjoy the softness, the whelk seashells,
the dulse.
Find your Ithaca in her sand.
Bones, barnacles, slippery lichens,
limpets like parasols clinging — patience,
water will come to the brim again.
As the tides change, we change
our dealings with them.
I have seen a woman jump into the gravelly shore
from the Blackrock Diving Tower of Galway Bay,
into the high tides, free.
Sure of the hands that are there to catch her.
ISBN: 978-1-915877-08-6 | Pages: 88 | Year published: 2026
How to Make Love to a Colonised Body is the second collection of poetry by Congolese-Irish poet Nithy Kasa. Written during the time of lock-up, followed by subsequent release, the collection addresses matters in our relationships, both personal and political, with a focus on the two nations Nithy calls home. Holding on to the beauty that exists in nature and in life, these poems play with a language that is second-hand to Nithy. All the while she is testing herself and mingling clear-cut contemporary tones with that of the dreamy traditional Irish poetry.
ISBN: 978-1-907682-88-9 | Pages: 80 | Published: 2022
Palm Wine Tapper and The Boy at Jericho is the diary of a woman’s journey from the nature-rich countryside and the red-sanded desert to the Lego-like city. Written in the narrative folklore genre of Nithy’s native culture, it sketches the passage from a child’s world, mystifying and exploratory, to the inner-complexities of womanhood. The collection is a painting, an open fire that invites you into the circle to share an adventure vividly portrayed in words.
