Porsha Olayiwola.Last Monday, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced the appointment of Porsha Olayiwola as the new City of Boston’s Poet Laurate. Olayiwola, a Jamaica Plain resident originally from Chicago, is the Artistic Director at the Massachusetts-based non-profit organization MassLEAP, dedicated to serving youth artists in the literary arts. Among her accomplishments include the co-founding of The House Slam, a poetry slam venue at Haley House Bakery Café in Roxbury, and being named the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and 2015 National Poetry Slam Champion. She currently holds a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies from the University of Illinois and is an MFA Candidate at Emerson College.
“I am eager and humbled to serve as Boston’s Poet Laureate. I am excited to work directly with writers across the City’s poetry spectrum to provide resources and build bridges between creative communities. With the City, I am looking to establish a youth Poet Laureate program, develop residential and workspace for writers and weave poetry into the everyday lives of Bostonians. Please look out for me in a library, classroom, lecture hall, City Hall, living room or street corner in the years to come!”
—Porsha Olayiwola.
Olayiwola will begin her new duties as the City’s Poet Laurate on January 1st, 2019. Among her challenges she will be charged with raising the status and poetry in the everyday consciousness of Bostonians by attending public readings, civic functions and poetry events, as well as inspire deeper engagement in the written and spoken word.
“Porsha’s eagerness to enhance the City of Boston through poetry, along with her commitment to increasing access to the arts in every neighborhood, make her an incredible asset. I’m excited to see her vision of how we can use arts to facilitate inclusive and welcoming conversations across the City come to life over the next four years.”
–Mayor Marty Walsh.
