Kenyan poet, playwright and political activist Shailja Patel, 45, is described by CNN as “the face of globalisation as a people-centred phenomenon of migration and exchange.”

Quite a mouthful of an accolade but it identifies an artist who defies neat labelling, and whose transition from crunching numbers to creating multitopic poems has been quite phenomenal.

Earlier in March, Ms Patel was invited to perform at the inaugural Wangari Maathai Foundation Tribute Gala. The Foundation is a new endeavour to advance the heritage of the late Kenyan environmentalist, human-rights activist and Nobel laureate.

She recited a poem called What Plants Us, an aptly named composition in honour of an individual who dedicated her life to saving forests in Kenya and led reforestation campaigns and championed grassroots environmentalism for decades.

The poem celebrates, “the power of movement building, of choosing collective action over fear and greed,” said Patel. Furthermore, she emphasise the urgency of the moment, “when all life on the planet is threatened by capitalism.”

Her poem opens with the lines, “Some moments, history comes to us and says, What will you plant?” It is an ingeniously phrased call to action or, at the very least, an appeal to stop and question the status quo.

On aligning herself with the Maathai Foundation, Patel said “Histories we don’t protect get erased.

“If Prof Maathai had not gone up against [former president] Moi and his cronies, there would be no Uhuru Park in Nairobi today. We would have no Karura Forest.”

Currently, Karura Forest, a protected woodland in the northern suburbs of Nairobi that Maathai fought hard to protect from excision in the 1990s, is once again under threat of encroachment from commercial developers.

Two decades ago Maathai was a visionary in her understanding of the linkages between the environment, democracy and peace. Patel’s artistic activism represents the current fight for the green spaces which are a vital component of the battle against public injustice.

Through her poems and stage presentations, Patel manages to drive home uncomfortable truths and provide a platform to expose the inequalities experienced by millions of unheard voices.

“When someone tells me my art gives them courage to work for justice, wherever they are, I know I’ve succeeded,” she said. Yet poetry is one of the least celebrated forms of art, more so in this digital age of ever faster media technology.

“I write about inequality and power, empire, erased histories, disposable people and global resource flows,” said Patel about her manifold interests, many of which she delivers as stage performances. Based both in Kenya and the US, she has recently been in East Africa, the place that informs her earliest memories of justice, inequality, and imperial history.

Born and raised in Kenya, she is a third-generation descendant of Indian migrants to East Africa. She trained as a political economist in Europe and the US, and her early career was in finance, until she found her life’s purpose in the written and spoken word.

Without a doubt, her most popular piece of writing is her debut book, Migritude, which borrows its title from Negritude, the 1930s Francophone-inspired literary philosophy.

Released in 2010, Migritude is a collection of poetry, monologues, family memoirs and essays on women’s lives, economic biases, social justice, and migrant experiences. The book offers a bold and eye-opening observation of inequity rooted in history, especially within the context of the diaspora movements that occurred under the former British empire.

Patel later converted the book into one-woman theatrical piece which has received accolades from audiences around Africa, Europe and North America.

On stage, she animates her points using a suitcase full of vibrant-coloured saris to tell the hidden stories of women in different communities during the colonial era. The saris are very personal to her as they form part of a bridal trousseau she received from her mother.

Such is the power of her poetry and written word that Migritude has been translated into 16 languages and is now taught in more than 60 universities and colleges around the world.

In Patel’s view, historic experiences are still influencing communities and policy-making today, and unless people are informed, lend their voices, and continue to be actively engaged in issues, they become the victims. “If you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu,” she noted.

Patel’s ability to underscore broader issues of justice through literary art is noteworthy. Lately, she has collaborated with Kenyan conservationists to highlight environmental matters.