Peace Akintade

Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye (she/her), Saskatchewan Poet Laureate,  is an African-Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet, Public Speaker, Chorus-Poem Playwright, and Thespian residing in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Organically from Yoruba-land Nigeria, Peace explores the intersectionality of the artist community from an explorer’s perspective, dipping her honey-stained fingers into poetry, dance, performance art, critical research, and the theater world.

Peace has been involved in the poetry community in various ways, including co-coordinating Write Out Loud, a Saskatoon-based youth poetry community and facilitating classroom poetry workshops in classrooms across the province with a number of different community organizations.

Her work knits together folklore, current events, and vivid imagery to create bridges. She is the author of “Earth Skin”, a poetry collection retelling the joys and woes of human connection. In 2021, her play “Madness with Rocks” was chosen for the 21 Black Future Project with Obsidian Theater and CBCGem. Her play “Painted Elephant” was shortlisted for the IBPOC 2021 Persephone Theater Commission and debuted with the Black Theater Workshop in Montreal. Recipient of the 2022 RBC SaskArts Emerging Artist Award and the 2023 Platinum Jubilee Queen’s Medal. 2020-2021 Saskatchewan Youth Poet Laureate, 2022 and 2023 READSaskatoon Poet Laureate, Poet-in-Residence with the Remai Modern Gallery for their Here and Now: Live Arts Initiative, and currently finishing her Artist-in-residency with BamSaskatoon, which includes a 46-hour performance art of continuous writing.

Her goal is to introduce the power of traditional African (Yoruba) oral literature, storytelling, and performance art to the growing public of Saskatchewan and beyond, and to make Poetry and Spoken Word accessible to youths by integrating the creativity and resourcefulness of poetry language to music, dance, plays, on stages with thousands, or inside the classroom.