Poet, debater, actress. Champion, 2026 SheShe Slam.
Portia Ford is a spoken word poet and competitive debater based in Accra. She won the 2026 SheShe Slam, and her work moves between civic argument and comedy, held together by the structural discipline she brought over from the debate floor.
The work
Ford writes poems that are built like cases. There is a claim, a turn, and a point where the argument lands. Two pieces define her current repertoire.
"How Many Times Must Accra Drown?" refuses to treat the city's seasonal flooding as weather. The poem reads it instead as a record of decisions, and of who was never going to be affected by them.
"Her Voice Is Not A Crime" addresses the quieter machinery of silence. Not law, but family pressure and reputational cost, and the ways a young Ghanaian woman learns that speaking is expensive.
Alongside these, she writes short conceptual pieces built for online audiences, including one explaining modern dating through mathematical metaphor.
Beyond the stage
Ford studies at the University of Ghana and works as an actress. She is also a serialised novelist. Her online fiction, including "Mistaken For A Guy," reaches readers who have never attended a slam.
Selected appearances
- Champion, SheShe Slam 2026
- Guest, Writers Project of Ghana, Citi 97.3 FM