From ‘TOUGH MEAT’ poetry music video. Directed by Bobby Zithelo.
Photographed by David Sexton 2022
From ‘WAKE’ by THISISPOPBABY- St Patrick’s Festival
The National Stadium - 2024
‘AN OLD SONG RE-SUNG’ - a decade of centenaries by RTE 1.
Performing ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ by W.B. Yeats.
‘OCTOPUS CHILDREN’ - main poster - Dublin Fringe Festival 2025
Photographed by Pato Cassinoni
Edited by Niall Sweeney
“i create electric rooms. I fill my stages, my classrooms, my scripts with iron truths and soft unravelings. i give over to the channel.”
I believe creativity is a gift given to us all. But being a Writer — a Griot, an Artist — that is a calling. One I hold with the utmost respect, responsibility and certainty. It is a gift of service. A community offering. I write rally cries and balms. I write open wounds. I write on to disturb the comfortable, and to comfort the disturbed, the overlooked, the ones the room wasn't built for. I notice the intersections because I live in some of the them — and I make work at them. My own intersection holds Black, femme, Nigerian-Irish, immigrant, queer, raised Pentecostal, now a spirit-being ‘Omo Emi’ and a student of the stars.
I make people feel seen. Noticed. Heard. That is the work. Translating the times I am living in, shining a light where we refuse to look, till none of us are alone in the dark turns that life takes. Everything else — the stages, the commissions, the classrooms — is just where the work happens.
Biography: FELISPEAKS
POET
FELISPEAKS began on the Irish Slam Circuit, which led them to co-found the poetry collective WEAREGRIOT alongside Dagogo Hart — a collective that continues to platform poets of all levels through TALKATIVES, their regular competitive slam nights in Dublin city.
Their poems explore themes of identity, social justice and personal growth through poetry. Their poems "For Our Mothers" and "Rainbow Blood" are on the Ordinary Level English Leaving Certificate curriculum. Their work has been commissioned by Research Ireland, Concern Ireland, RTE, International Literature Festival Dublin and the National Irish Dance Company LUAIL, among many others.
PERFORMER
Blending poetry, creative direction and musicality to create a compelling video narrative, FELISPEAKS debuted their poetic single "TOUGH MEAT" in November 2022, showcasing their mastery of lyrical expression.
LATEST WORK
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premiered in Dublin Fringe Festival - September 2025
Part gig theatre, part poetic landscape — produced by THISISPOPBABY. Written by FELISPEAKS. Directed by Oonagh Murphy & Esosa Ighodaro. OCTOPUS CHILDREN follows Young Felicia coming of age as a queer, Black Irish midlands culchie, grappling with the layers of identity and the responsibilities they carry, led by a wise guide: The Octopus. The show that started everything that's coming next.
Best Ensemble · Dublin Fringe 2025. Best New Play · Chris O'Rourke
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Premiered in Dublin Fringe Festival 2022. Toured till Jan 2026.
The electrifying Irish variety phenomenon from acclaimed Irish theatre company THISISPOPBABY, which remixes traditions in a high-octane, heart-thumping celebration of life and connection. Awarded Best Performer at Dublin Fringe Festival 2022 for their role in THISISPOPBABY's production WAKE — a show that has since travelled to St. Patrick's Festival 2024, the West End London, Manchester's Aviva Studios, and Sydney Festival, Australia.
Best Performer. Dublin Fringe 2022.
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MMANWU written by DAGOGO HART
The Pearse Centre. March 2026.
I performed as the lead character in Mmanwu, a poetic stage play exploring the journey of a young Nigerian widow navigating grief, motherhood, and identity after the sudden loss of her husband. Blending theatre, poetry, and movement, the play examines gender roles, cultural expectations, and emotional inheritance through intimate family dynamics.
BOYCHILD written by FELISPEAKS & Dagogo Hart
Boychild uses poetry, stage craft and storytelling to tell the story of a boy learning how to be a man. This script explores feminism through the eyes of a young man, he reckons with himself via the women in his life. I played Akanbi’s mother, lover and friend.
Nominated Best Performer. Dublin Fringe 2018.
PLAYWRIGHT
FELISPEAKS' plays are rooted in the same impulses as their poetry — the body, the political, the inherited and the imagined. Their theatre makes space for voices and stories that institutional stages have historically excluded. Aside from OCTOPUS CHILDREN, listed below are a few more plays written by FELISPEAKS.
LATEST WORK
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2025 - 2026
Commissioned by Fishamble The New Play Company. Part of Not Beckett, an international rolling world premiere of new short plays in conversation with Beckett's work, by femme-identifying and non-binary playwrights of diversified Irish descent.
London. Dublin. New York. Bordeaux. D.C.
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2024 - 2025
Commissioned by Irish Repertory Theatre and Fishamble for the Transatlantic Commission Programme. Premiered across Dublin, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Mentored by Pulitzer Prize nominee Dael Orlandersmith. Directed by Nicola Murphy-Dubey and Jim Culleton.
Dublin. New York. San Francisco. Los Angeles.
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September 2021 - Dublin Theatre Festival - Lockdown edition.
DUBH is a collaborative work - weaving poetry, music, film and theatre - filmed live theatre for a streamed audience - supported by Arts Council Ireland, presented at Dublin Theatre Festival. Exploring repression, sexuality and healing with music producer Fehdah, singer songwriter Tolu Makay, dancer and performer Andrea Williams and filmmaker Zithelo Bobby Mthombeni.
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2018
A poetic-theatrical work engaging with women's bodily autonomy in the wake of the abortion referendum. Presented at Smock Alley Theatre, directed by David Francis Moore.
CURATOR AND EDUCATOR
Amongst Ourselves, created in collaboration with the Hugh Lane Gallery, staged Black Irish women as art — using poetry (developed in weeks of workshops) to carry audiences through the meaning of home, belonging and the mother-daughter relationship. Available on YouTube.
The classroom is another kind of stage. FELISPEAKS has facilitated writing workshops across schools, education centres and youth initiatives throughout Ireland. They also curate TALKATIVES with WEAREGRIOT — regular slam nights in Dublin city that invite poets of all skill ranges to sharpen their voice on the Griot stage.
Additional Accolades
FELISPEAKS' impact extends beyond the stage, earning a brand ambassadorship with LAYA HEALTH CARE and TV campaign 2021 - 2023; also earning recognition as an Artist-In-Residence with Axis Ballymun & Visual Carlow for the '21/'22 season. They also served as an Associate Artist with THISISPOPBABY in 2021/2022. Recognized as an "Irish Tatler Woman of the Year" in the Catalyst Category for 2021, representing their significant contribution to the intersection of art and culture in Ireland.