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Theresa Lola is a British Nigerian poet and writer and was appointed the Young People's Laureate for London in the year 2019-20. In 2018 she was awarded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize. She holds an Mst in Creative Writing from University of Oxford. In 2022 the poem 'Equilibrium' from her debut poetry collection, In Search of Equilibrium, was added to OCR's GCSE English Literature syllabus.
What a joy to see a new sun rising in the poetic sky! We all will enjoy this collection, Ceremony for the Nameless, following the questions and answers with which Theresa Lola struggles. She offers here a wonderful book to add to your collection. -- Nikki Giovanni In Theresa Lola’s Ceremony for the Nameless I find myself a grateful student of history, of formal dexterity, set to stunning lyric. These poems teach me, and move me -- Safia Elhillo, author of <i> Girls That Never Die </i> Praise for In Search of Equilibrium * - * Lola joins the ranks of an exciting new wave of young female bards who are widening the appeal of poetry for a new generation * Sunday Times Style Magazine * Theresa Lola’s poems never fail to surprise with her breath-taking ability to create unexpected imagery; they never fail to move as she laments the last years of a loved one; and they never fail to delight with the transformative and healing power of poetry to create beauty. -- Bernardine Evaristo In Search of Equilibrium is a powerful and rigorous interrogation of a loved one’s death and its effect on faith. Theresa Lola has composed a glorious hymn to being alive and wounded, in a dazzling array of images, psalms, anti-prayers, Hip Hop, strange algorithms, and wiki entries. These are brutally tender poems, carved straight from the heart -- Pascale Petit A bold exploration into the cruel fates that cause a human to unravel. Theresa ’s quest to search both the living world and the dead for answers to the purpose and predicament of her existence are a journey worth joining her on. It is a journey of both grace and humility -- Nick Makoha A deeply felt response to grief and a closely observed portrait of family, heartbreak, survival, and the evolution of personhood... page after page, Lola deftly deploys form, texture, and shape to interrogate the meaning of death and the suffering of family... death and grief may drive the collection, but there are many moments of joyfulness and beauty, and many observations of the daily habits of love -- Niroshini Somasundaram * The Poetry School * It is rare for a debut collection by a young poet to be so death-haunted, but it is death-haunted in the same sense as Plath’s Ariel and Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back. The comparison isn’t fanciful. Lola’s writing has a similar vividness and strength * Magma *
