Representative Nnamdi Chukwuocha Contact information

Nnamdi O. Chukwuocha, born on November 16, 1970, is an American politician, poet, and social worker. He is a Democratic member of the Delaware House of Representatives, representing District 1. He is also the current Poet Laureate of Delaware, along with his twin brother, Al Mills.

Chukwuocha was born in Wilmington, Delaware, two minutes before his twin brother, Albert Mills. Their father, William “Hicks” Anderson, was a community leader in Wilmington and the city’s only community center is named after him. Chukwuocha described his upbringing as a “community-centered family.” From an early age, the brothers were interested in writing and poetry. They began writing at age six and were performing together by age seven to children at their grandmother’s foster home.

Chukwuocha enlisted in the United States Army and was stationed in Alaska. His brother also served in the Army, in both Iraq and Kuwait during the first Gulf War. Chukwuocha is a social worker and works as a director at Interfaith Community Housing of Delaware. With his brother, he founded a nonprofit, Art for Life, that seeks to “use the power of the arts to save and transform lives by empowering individuals and communities to create, utilize and support life giving art.” He has worked in the nonprofit field for over 30 years.

Chukwuocha and his brother, Al Mills, are known as the “Twin Poets”. Both brothers are veterans of the U.S. Army and social workers from Wilmington, Delaware. They have written and performed together since a young age. Their poetry deals with issues such as gun violence, poverty, and the criminal justice system, and is informed by their social work and daily engagement with vulnerable populations in Wilmington. The brothers work collaboratively in their creative process. They have a strong rapport on-stage, often speak in unison or intermingle their voices, and are able to uniquely punctuate one another with their “rhythmic” spoken poetry. Mills described his brother as writing longer poems. The Twin Poets have won several awards for their work and appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry.