CU Student Denver’s Youth Poet Laureate

At Innisfree Bookstore & Café, all of the side conversations, laughter and mumbles disappear as soon as Obiwole walks onto the old wooden stage, and speaks through the microphone. When she starts talking to the small audience at the coffee shop, she doesn’t even have to ask for their attention. With her long braided hair, bright red lipstick and loud yet soothing voice, Obiwole is able to captivate the audience’s attention as soon as she starts introducing herself.

As the host of the weekly open mic nights which take place every Tuesday night at Innisfree, Obiwole brings her passion, love and energy for poetry, and transmits this to the public. Every time before proceeding with the event, she does an interactive exercise with the audience members to comfort and energize every single person present. Once she does this, she continues with reading one of her many powerful poetry pieces. Some nights she chooses to read a poem from one of her published books, other nights she reads a piece that she wrote minutes just before going on stage.

No matter what poem Obiwole chooses to share, you can feel her passion and emotion with every word she reads. Whether it’s a sad, happy, political, or motivational piece, she’s always able to touch the audience with her words.

Toluwa Obiwole, a fourth year student at the University of Colorado Boulder is not only the host of these weekly open mic nights, but she’s also an accomplished poet. As Denver’s Youth Poet Laureate, Obiwole is a published poet who has a publishing deal with Penmanship Books; a New York based publishing agency.

More recently, Obiwole published her second poetry book “How to Become a Lightning Storm” which is already available at various bookstores in Colorado. This book is filled with dozens of deeply personal poems that address issues of race, identity and gender. Obiwole explains that many of the poems in the book express the emotions and dilemmas she dealt with while growing up.

“A lot of the poems in this book were about me exploring like coming into womanhood and really being aware about my blackness, and being very aware about my identity. And who I was in this country as a woman,” said Toluwa Obiwole, “So now I’ve become a little more comfortable with that.”

At only 21 years old, and with already two published books, this is only the beginning of Obiwole’s journey with poetry. She’s already planning on publishing other books and working on further poetry projects. Currently, she’s exploring other parts of herself and her poetry.

“This book was extremely like self exploratory and self examining. But now I am kind of ready, to after really looking at myself and internalizing a lot of things talking about my interactions with other people.”

Since becoming the host of the open mic nights, interacting with others is exactly what she has been able to do. Those who have had the opportunity to meet or listen to Obiwole performing her poetry, describe her as humble, energetic, and powerful.

One person who is close to Obiwole is Brian Buckley, the owner of Innisfree, who chose her to become the main host of these weekly events. He says her poetry is “rich” and “hypnotizing” which is what has made the public react particularly well to her.

“They’ve accepted Toluwa on so many levels” said Brian Buckley.

Obiwole who will be graduating in the spring of 2017, is still unsure about what exactly she will do once finished with school. One thing is for sure, she will continue to express her thoughts, feelings and emotions through poetry.