About

Warda Yassin is an award-winning British born Somali poet and secondary school teacher based in Sheffield. She was a winner of the 2018 New Poets Prize for her debut pamphlet Tea with Cardamom (Poetry Business, published 2019). Her poetry has been published in places like The North, Magma and Oxford Poetry, and anthologised in Verse Matters (Valley Press), Anthology X (Smith|Doorstep), Halfway Smile & Surfing the Twilight (Hive). From October 2020 she will be taking on the role of Sheffield Poet Laureate.

Warda has been commissioned as a poet and delivered poetry workshops. She is currently running the Mixing Roots project for young people of colour with Hive South Yorkshire. She has performed at various festivals and open mic nights including Ilkley Festival, Off the Shelf Festival of Words and Verse Matters, and has read with talents such as Hollie McNish, Jean Binta Breeze and Kayo Chingonyi.

Banner photo by Marc Baker