In honor of National Poetry Month, GBH’s Beyond the Page invites you to an exciting and inspiring evening of poetry. Each poet brings their own artistic approach and voice touching upon social issues, identity, and dreams for the future. You won’t want to miss this!
Please meets our poets for the evening:
Porsha Olayiwola is the current Poet Laureate of Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historial and current issues in the Black, woman and queer diasporas. She is the World Poetry Slam Champion and the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival. Her work can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, Netflix, The Academy of American Poets, The Boston Globe, and much more. She is the author of, I shimmer sometimes, too.
Anjalequa Leynneyah Verona Birkett is Boston’s newest Youth Poet Laureate. Anjalequa is currently 18 years old and attends the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science where she has honed in on her technique and love for writing and poetry. She has volunteered with organizations such as A-VOYCE and BARCC to spread awareness of social issues that impact her community and help make and be the blueprint for change. In everything she does she makes it her mission to express the feelings of people around her and her own, and create a bright, and better future ahead. Similar to the Poet Laureate's civic challenge, the Youth Poet Laureate is tasked with inspiring deeper engagement in the written and spoken word.
Amanda Shea is a renowned spoken word and multidisciplinary artist, educator, mentor, activist, publicist, power networker and mother. Amanda is a community heartbeat and over the years has facilitated countless youth workshops for spoken word poetry, visual arts, and public speaking. Shea is the co-founder and curator of Activating ARTivism, a community festival to amplify POC through art, activism and resistance. On top of all of that she is Boston’s Music Awards, Spoken Word Artist of the Year 2022.