Emeritus Professor Robert Coles Publishes Book of Poetry With Alum Kimberly Headley 01F

Hampshire Emeritus Associate Professor of African-American Literature Robert Coles has published a new book of poetry with ATU Publishing, which was founded by alum Kimberly Headley 01F. Akyiba— The Return is a collection that, per Headley, “captures the essence of the African Diaspora.” In the introduction, Headley writes: “Exploring identity, pearl-like in its constant defense against intrusions from the outside world, we are asked to reckon with the often overwhelming power the observer wields.”

The two first met in 2001, when Headley took Coles’s Prison Literature class. Later, Coles oversaw one of Headley’s independent studies, and she went on to be the TA for his African American Poetry class. They remained in touch after Headley graduated. “As both educator and historian myself, he and I have always spent hours discussing the many academic and historical topics about which we have shared interests,” she says.

Headley launched ATU Publishing — ATU stands for “All the Unexpected” — as an offshoot of a podcast and website she began in 2020 while homeschooling her daughter. She started with educational coloring books, and eventually expanded to publish her children's book ABCs of Turtle Island. “I felt very strongly that educators who make art needed a publishing outlet that was outside the traditional ‘Big Four’ or the confines of the more established academic presses,” she says, “a press that was accessible to everyone.” She hopes to continue to publish the work of educators who are artists, she says, “giving them an alternative space to have their voices showcased.”

Last year, Coles published a chapbook titled Personalities, and that sparked an idea for Headley. “I thought some of the poems in the collection lent themselves to a larger discussion about the wider experience of the African diaspora,” she says. After the two talked about the themes and topics Headley had in mind, Coles sent her what she calls “a stack of poetry.” Headley divided them into four sections: “Ooman — Homeland,” “Nyanka — Orphans,” “Awooh — Birth,” and “Nkaeeh — Memory.”

The book’s title and section headings are “borrowed from Twi, one of the major language families spoken in central and southern Ghana." This intentional choice on the part of Headley, also the book’s editor, was "made in an effort to ground the collection in a geographic center with great historical significance to the African diaspora.” Headley included her own digital artwork to accompany the collection: “It’s meant to serve as a complement to the emotions the poems evoked in me as reader and editor.

Robert Coles has published more than 100 poems in periodicals and journals and his work also appears in anthologies. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, he began research on the life and work of the African Russian poet and playwright Alexander Pushkin. His memoir, Pursuing Alexander Pushkin, was published in 2025. He has also written an award-winning film biopic about Pushkin.

He earned a Ph.D. in American literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1979. He began his career in 1972 at Temple University and went on to teach at Howard University, Fordham University, and Berea College. He arrived at Hampshire in 1989 and taught African Literature and Prison Literature before retiring in 2009 to pursue writing full time.