Jamila Woods

Jamila Woods is a poet, songwriter, and performing artist from the south side of Chicago. Her three solo albums HEAVN (2017), LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019) and Water Made Us (2023) were released by JagJaguwar Records to critical acclaim. An internationally touring artist, Jamila has been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Jamila’s writing has been published in POETRY, Poets.org, and The Offing, and was featured in the 2023 anthology “Black Love Letters” published by John Legend's Get Lifted Books. She has been awarded writing residencies at Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, BLKSPACE on Ryder Farm, and Civitella Ranieri. In 2022 she served as artist-in-residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, teaching workshops on poetry, songwriting and live performance. An award-winning poet, Jamila’s work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes, “It makes you wish all singers were poets."