From Here To There: 101 Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration, the second volume in the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series, brings together 63 poets whose work navigates the complexities of movement, belonging, and displacement across the African continent and diaspora.

Edited by Nandi Jola and Omobola Osamor and published by CivicLeicester, the anthology follows last year’s Japa Fire with another vital intervention in migration storytelling at a moment when anti-immigrant rhetoric dominates headlines across the West.

The anthology takes its title from a poem by Thulani Mahlangu that captures the ancestral dislocation at migration’s heart. Contributors span the continent and beyond—from Cameroon, Eritrea, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe to poets writing from Britain, the United States, and Europe. The collection includes established voices like Tanure Ojaide and Dike Okoro alongside emerging writers, creating what Alan Morrison in his review, describes as conversations between poems that speak across borders and generations. Among the contributors are Yemi Atanda, Zainab M. Hassan, Ugwuja Emmanuel Ifeanyichukwu, Zan V. Johns, Anton Krueger, Octavia McBride-Ahebee, Jenny Mitchell, SuAndi, and Furaha Youngblood, each bringing distinct perspectives to themes of departure, transit, destination, and the decision to return or stay away.

The anthology refuses simple narratives of migration. Jana van Niekerk’s “From God to Dust” satirizes anti-immigrant rhetoric, while Joseph C. Ogbonna’s “Don’t Surprise Me Europe” confronts colonial legacies with sharp irony. Frank Olunga tackles racial profiling in everyday encounters, and Philisiwe Twijnstra explores racialized displacement in “Zulu Girl In Rotterdam.” The Yoruba term “japa”, meaning to leave one’s country for better opportunities, threads through multiple poems, grounding the collection in specific African linguistic and cultural contexts while speaking to universal experiences of seeking safety, education, and futures beyond one’s birthplace.

Organized by Forced Migration and The Arts in collaboration with CivicLeicester and the migrants’ rights collective Regularise, the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series was inspired by the African Union and International Organization for Migration’s Africa Migration Report: 2nd Edition.

From Here To There: 101 Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration is available for purchase here.