Al Mills

Al Mills is half of the Twin Poets, a spoken word duo with his brother, Nnamdi O. Chukwuocha. They are the authors of the collections Our Work, Our Words... Poems from the Pavement (Nu Direction Publishing, 2015), Our Work, Our Words... Taking the Guns from Our Sons' Hands (iUniverse, 2008), Lyric Libations (Rebirth Press, 2000), and Selected Poems (Rebirth Press, 1998). They have also performed at the Delaware Humanities Forum, the Walt Whitman Arts Center, the HBO Def Poetry National and International tours, and at the Philadelphia Art Museum, among others.

They are the recipients of numerous awards and grants, including the Wilmington Urban League MLK Award, the Bank of American Local Hero Award, and the State of Delaware Social Workers of the Year. The brothers are Licensed Master Social Workers and founders of Art For Life—Delaware, a non-profit youth and community development organization rooted in the arts. The Twin Poets were the subjects of award winning documentaries Why I Write and Art For Life, which chronicle their artistic social change efforts. Mills is a therapist, co-founder of G.O.A.L.S and S.Y.A. tutoring and mentoring programs in Wilmington, and an Iraq War veteran who often speaks about his struggles with PTSD as a result of the war.

Read about Al Mills’s 2020 Poets Laureate Fellowship project.