Roxbury Poetry Festival

Ife Franklin's practice involves several genres of art-making inspired by slave narratives, dreams, dance, song, and visions. Over the last decade she has been developing The Indigo Project which honors the lives and history of formerly enslaved Africans/African-Americans who labored to produce materials that generated the wealth of nations. At the center are Franklin's Ancestor Slave Cabins which often incorporate Adire fabric, an indigo-dyed cotton cloth decorated using a resist technique from the Yoruba culture. These assemblages are built in collaboration with the community and cultivate connections that promote understanding and healing from the hard history of enslavement. In 2018 Franklin published, The Slave Narrative of Willie Mae, a fictional account of Willie Mae Lenox's escape from slavery to freedom. The work was adapted into a short film in 2021.

Stephen Hamilton is an artist and arts educator living and working in Boston Massachusetts. Stephen's Work incorporates both Western and African techniques, blending figurative painting and drawing with resist dyeing, weaving, and woodcarving. Each image is a marriage between the aesthetic perspectives and artistry of both traditions. As a Black American trained in traditional west African artforms, he treats the acts of weaving, dyeing, and woodcarving as ritualized acts of reclamation. He uses traditional techniques and materials native to West Africa to reclaim ancestral knowledge dissociated from Africans in the Americas, during the transatlantic slave trade. The work explores and heavily references the Black body in pre-colonial African art history, creating visual connections between the past and the present. This forms a body of work, which serves as a conceptual and visual bridge between the ancient and modern worlds. Through this, he explores elements of black identity through time and space on its own terms.

Amanda Gunn is a Black, queer poet who grew up just at the edge of the woods in southern Connecticut with two older brothers. Her debut poetry collection, Things I Didn't Do with This Body, was published by Copper Canyon Press (2023). She is the recipient of the Missouri Review Editor's Prize, the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize, and has received fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, MacDowell, and others. She is a PhD candidate in English at Harvard; her dissertation project examines formal experimentation, aesthetic disruption, and political consciousness in the work of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Kes Maro (they/he) is a queer poet and visual artist based in Brooklyn. They are a co-founder of the Mill City Writers Retreat and current MFA candidate at NYU. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and can be found or is forthcoming in ____figuration: An Anthology of Trans Writers, the Portland Dirt, Passengers Journal, Blood+Honey, and elsewhere. They were a member of the 2023 and 2024 Mill City Speaks slam team. You can find them on Instagram @kes.maro.

Kayla Kennedy is a behavior analyst, actress, poet, and author. As a BCBA, she works with families affected by autism and other social disabilities. As a poet she has competed on slam teams in Lowell and Cambridge including The Lizard Lounge and the Mill City Speaks Slam Team from 2023-2025. Her poetry has been featured across multiple venues throughout New England. She represented Slam Free or Die for the 2024 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam in Baltimore and has conducted workshops in both college universities and local high schools. She is currently working on her debut speculative fiction novel.

Keith S. Wilson is a poet, game designer, and multimedia artist living in Chicago. He is an Affrilachian Poet and a Cave Canem fellow. A recipient of an NEA Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and an Illinois Arts Council Agency Award, Keith has received both a Kenyon Review Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. Additionally, he has received fellowships or grants from Bread Loaf, Tin House, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, UCross, the Millay Colony, and James Merrill House, among others. Wilson was a Gregory Djanikian Scholar, and his poetry has won the Rumi Prize and been anthologized in Best New Poets and Best of the Net. His book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry. His second book, Games for Children (Milkweed Editions), was a winner of the National Poetry Series.

Wilson's nonfiction has won an Indiana Review Nonfiction Prize and the Redivider Blurred Line Prize, and has been anthologized in the award-winning collection Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy. His poetry and prose have appeared in Elle, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others.

Wilson's work in game design and new media includes the educational video game Caduceus Quest; Once Upon a Tale, a storytelling card game designed for Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago in collaboration with The Field Museum of Chicago; and alternate reality games (ARGs) for the University of Chicago. He has worked with or taught new media with Kenyon College, the Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium, and the University of Chicago. Wilson's visual art has appeared at the Hyde Park Art Center, where he was a Radicle Fellow, and the Bridgeport Art Center.

Crystal Valentine is a nationally and internationally acclaimed poet, educator and organizer. A former New York City Youth Poet Laureate and two-time winner of the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, Crystal has been offered fellowships from Callaloo, Tin House, Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences, The Boston Foundation and Cave Canem. She is the winner of Palette Poetry's 2021 Emerging Poet Prize, selected by Kelli Russell Agodon and her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Magazine, and elsewhere. She received an MFA from New York University. Originally hailing from the Bronx, Crystal now resides in Boston where she serves as the co-host of Just Be(loved): Your Neighborhood Poetry Slam and Open Mic. When she isn't writing or agonizing over line breaks, you can find her watching anime and dreaming. Visit her at iamcrystalvalentine.com.

Eric Esteves is a connector, convener, and advocate. His life mission is to connect people to resources and opportunities in order to transform their lives.

Eric is the former Executive Director of the Lenny Zakim Fund and before that was the Director of the Social Innovation Fund at The Boston Foundation. He's also worked for Root Cause, Harvard Business School, Lesley University, the Boston Impact Initiative, and the Boston Public Schools. Eric received both his undergraduate degree in Business Administration and his graduate degree in Information Systems from Northeastern University.

Quintin Collins is a writer, editor, and associate director of the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program. He is the author of The Dandelion Speaks of Survival and Claim Tickets for Stolen People, selected by Marcus Jackson as winner of The Journal's 2020 Charles B. Wheeler Prize. Quintin's other awards and accolades include a Pushcart Prize, a BCALA Literary Award honor, a Mass Cultural Council grant, the 2019 Atlantis Award from the Poet's Billow, and Best of the Net nominations.

Matthew E. Henry is an educator, essayist, occasional fiction writer, and author of seven poetry collections, most recently Promises to Keep (Wayfarer Books, 2026). Editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal, a poetry editor at American Poetry Journal, and creative nonfiction editor at Porcupine Literary, MEH's publications include Barren Magazine, Had, Massachusetts Review, Mom Egg Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Ploughshares, Stone Circle Review, Terrain, and The Worcester Review. MEH earned an MFA yet continued to spend money he didn't have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. He writes about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground at www.MEHPoeting.com.

Sarah Kersey is a poet and X-ray technologist. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Residence Time, which was published by Newfound in 2024. In 2025, it was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award-Medal Provocateur. Their work has been published in The Rumpus, Columbia Journal, The Account Magazine, SWWIM, and elsewhere.

Jill McDonough's latest book is American Treasure (Alice James, 2022). The recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford's Stegner program, she directs the MFA program at UMass Boston.

Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah is a Ghanaian American poet, editor, and educator living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. They are both Black & alive.

Born in 1993, Emmanuel is the school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, and Boston's current poet laureate. They are the author of Not Without Small Joys.

Perpetua Cannistraro has worked as a publicist at Beacon Press for over a decade. She promotes titles from a wide variety of subjects, including American history, race and culture, progressive education & religion, memoir, and poetry. When she's not reading for work, she enjoys pop culture or historical nonfiction, genre fiction, and spiritual reading. Perpetua also sings, writes, loves movies and TV, and she loves to get on her husband's nerves in Roxbury.

Jenny Molberg is the author of three poetry collections: Marvels of the Invisible (Tupelo Press, 2017), winner of the Berkshire Prize; Refusal (LSU Press, 2020); and The Court of No Record (LSU Press, 2023), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She edited the Unsung Masters volume Adelaide Crapsey: On the Life and Work of an American Master, and her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. Molberg has received fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Hambidge Center, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Longleaf Writers Conference. Formerly Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Central Missouri, where she directed Pleiades Press and edited Pleiades: Literature in Context, she is now Professor of Writing, Literature, and Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of Ploughshares at Emerson College.

Tatiana Johnson-Boria is a writer, educator, and multidisciplinary artist whose work explores trauma, healing, race, identity, and the complex magic of mothering. She is the author of Nocturne in Joy (Sundress Publications, 2023), winner of the 2024 Julia Ward Howe Book Prize in Poetry.

Tatiana is an award-winning writer and recipient of fellowships and grants from Tin House, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MacDowell, the Brother Thomas Fellowship, and the St. Botolph Club Foundation, among others. She's the winner of the Matt Clark Poetry Prize at New Delta Review (2021) and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net recognition. Tatiana has also been named a finalist for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry at Anhinga Press, the Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize, The Southern Humanities Review Auburn Witness Prize, and the 92Y Discovery Contest. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, Transition Magazine, and many other publications. She is represented by Lauren Scovel at Laura Gross Literary.

Lin Flores is the author of Reflections While Living in Utah (2020) and an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of New Orleans. Lin is a two-time recipient of the Andrea Saunders Gereighty / Academy of American Poets Award (2023 & 2024). They were also named a 2024 poetry fellow with Roots. Wounds. Words. under Paul Tran. Most recently, they were awarded an emerging artist grant to attend The Chateau d'Orquevaux, an international artist and writers residency in France. Lin serves as a reader for The Offing and Bayou Magazine and their poetry has been published in Poets, Lesbians Are Miracles, Latinx Lit Mag, Moist, Pile Press, and UNO's Ellipsis. When not writing, Lin volunteers with Plumas Colectiva, a collective of Latinx poets and artists, supporting cultural expression and environmental advocacy.

Maria Pinto is a Jamaican-American author and educator living in the Boston area. She teaches for various arts organizations, and her work has appeared in Orion Magazine, Literary Hub, Longreads, and Science, among other publications. She leads workshops and gives lectures for mushroom clubs and environmental groups around the country, and leads regular fungal forays at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum. Her book of essays inspired by mushrooms, Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival, published by Great Circle Books, was shortlisted for the 2026 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

George Abraham (he/they) is a Palestinian American poet, essayist, critic, performance artist. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America (Haymarket, 2027) and Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), which won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are the editor at large of Mizna and coeditor of Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket, 2025), which was long-listed for the Palestine Book Award.

Mejdulene Bernard Shomali (she/her) is a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Williams College. She is the author of Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives and the poetry chapbook agriculture of grief: prayers for my father's dementia.

Hannah Moushabeck (she/her) is a Palestinian-American book worker who was raised in a family of publishers and booksellers. Hannah has worked in publishing for over a decade and now runs Interlink Publishing, the only Palestinian-owned publisher in the United States, alongside her family. Her debut picture book, Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine (Chronicle Books, 2023), won the New England Book Award and the Arab American Book Award.

Jeneé Osterheldt is a culture columnist who covers identity and social justice through the lens of culture and the arts. Her work centers Black lives and the lives of people of color. She is also the creator of A Beautiful Resistance, a multimedia platform and docuseries for The Boston Globe that centers Black voices and celebrates Black Joy.

The work is both joy and justice. Sometimes this means taking systemic racism, sexism, and oppression to task. Other times it means arts, joy, and space-making. It always means Black lives matter.

Beyond writing and film, her work comes to life on stage and screen as she moderates conversations with thought leaders and culture makers like Ghetto Gastro, Taraji P. Henson, and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.

In 2023, she was named deputy managing editor of talent, culture, and development, making her the second Black woman to ever grace the masthead. More recently, the City of Boston honored her work with a day in its honor: As of 2025 going forward, Nov. 21 is A Beautiful Resistance Day in our city. This year, the Boston Celtics honored her as a Hero Among Us.

She joined the Globe in 2018. She was the 2023 chair of the Pulitzer jury for criticism, 2023 ONA winner for Commentary, 2022 YW Boston Women Achiever, a 2022 Murrow Award winner, a 2021 News Leader Association winner, and a 2021 Most Influential Bostonian. She opened for ABC/Hulu's "Soul of a Nation" three times. She is a 2024 New England Regional Emmy Award winner.

A native of Alexandria, Va. and a proud graduate of Norfolk State University, Osterheldt was a 2017 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where her studies focused on the intersection of art and justice.

Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection is Sturge Town (W.W. Norton, 2024). Dawes is Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and is the Series Editor of the African Poetry Book Series, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a former Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kwame Dawes is the winner of the prestigious Windham/Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022 Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica. He is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica (2024-2027).