Roxbury Poetry Festival
About Us
“I don't understand art for art's sake. Art is for the guts of the people.”
- Elma Lewis, 1977
The Roxbury Poetry Festival is a biennial event centering poetry in Roxbury, MA. The inaugural festival is happening virtually with the exception of two evening events. The festival features several award-winning writers, panelists, and curators, and centers a keynote address from 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Jericho Brown. The day-long event culminates with a Publisher’s Poetry Slam sponsored by Button Poetry that yields a book contract for a local writer and a “Beast The Beat” concert battle highlighting a local hip hop artist. The festival is free and open to the public.
Questions or concerns? Please reach out to us!
About the Poet Laureate
Porsha Olayiwola is a writer, performer, futurist and curator. Olayiwola is serving as the current Poet Laureate for the City of Boston and a 2020 laureate fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Part of her work with the Academy of American Poets is establishing the HOME Reading & Workshop series as well as the inaugural Roxbury Poetry Festival. Olayiwola is a long-time Roxbury organizer and artist and a recent Rox-resident. (Photo credit: Feda Eid)
Festival Managers
Winelle Felix is a Trinidadian writer living in Boston. She is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at Emerson College. When she is not translating her experiences through writing, she’s thinking of a master plan to get back to Marcus beach where she can get her hands on some Bake and Shark.
“‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.”
- Pulitzer Prize Winner, Alice Walker