Raya Wambui

Raya Wambui wrote her first poem when she was only five years old, and has been writing consistently for fifteen years. She describes poetry as passion meeting purpose. She began performing her poetry four years ago, and fell completely in love with the opportunity it provided to interact directly with the audience. She believes that her driving force is the immortality that comes with being able to express personal and social issues in a way that inspires healing and positivity. Her main topics of focus are social inequalities (gender and economic), injustices and personal struggles and triumphs.

Her content is passionate, expressive and emotive, strongly influenced and inspired by local imagery, current affairs and the idea that hoping and working towards a brighter tomorrow is our best bet at achieving a brighter future. For her, poetry is a means of expression and communication that encompasses the viewpoints and experiences of people who have never met, to bring meaning to life experiences, commonalities and differences through words. It is the culmination of the senses, visual, audio and sensual, into linguistic fluidity with purpose.

She is a Slam Africa Queen (Nairobi’s longest running poetry slam competition) and the laureate of the Nairobi edition of The Spoken Word Project. She has organised and performed at numerous poetry events in Nairobi and continues to do so. Her wish is to be remembered as a poet. As someone who inspired hope, as someone who encouraged positive change.