Sheniz Janmohamed was born and raised in Tkaronto (Toronto, Canada) with ancestral ties to Kenya and India. A poet, artist educator, and nature artist, Sheniz is a graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Guelph.
In the last 15 years, Sheniz has presented her poetry all over the world including at the Jaipur Literature Festival, where she shared the stage with lyricist Javed Akhtar, at the Aga Khan Museum, where she curated the Spoken Word Series (2015), and at TEDXYouth Toronto, where she performed her poetry for the most promising students in the province.
She has three collections of poetry published by Mawenzi House: Bleeding Light (2010), Firesmoke (2014), and Reminders on the Path (2021). Her nature art has been featured across Turtle Island, including the National Arts Centre, MOCA and the Art Gallery of Mississauga.
A recipient of the Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming Creative Teaching Scholarship, Sheniz holds an Artist Educator Mentor certificate from the Royal Conservatory of Ontario. With 12 years of teaching experience, she visits dozens of organizations and schools to offer performances, talks, and workshops in poetry and nature art. She is a firm believer in fostering community through collaboration and creativity, bringing an equity-informed lens to her mentorships and workshops.
In 2022, Sheniz served as the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, the first writer of South Asian descent to serve in this position. She is currently procrastinating on writing her fourth book, a collection of hybrid essays about her grandmother’s garden in the highlands of Kenya.
On her latest book, Reminders on the Path:“In this poignant and evocative collection of poems, the talented Sheniz invites us to join her on intersecting journeys across and beyond time and space; nostalgic journeys which elegantly interweave the material with the spiritual, the forgotten and the remembered, the past and the present in breathtakingly transformative ways.”
–Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Harvard University
Check out more of her work on her site shenizjanmohamed.com and on YouTube
Garden of Refuge
Jaipur Literature Festival 2013
