Join us for a very special event in honor of National Poetry Month! Acclaimed poet Ama Codjoe will be reading from her outstanding, award winning collection Bluest Nude, followed by a conversation with the amazing writer, journalist and educator Nakia Hill!

Poet Ama Codjoe is the author of  Bluest Nude (Milkweed Editions), winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Paterson Poetry Prize. She has been awarded support from Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Amy Clampitt Residency among many others. Other honors include fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council/New York Foundation of the Arts and many more. In 2023, Codjoe was appointed as the second Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum and is the winner of the prestigous 2023 Whiting Award. Codjoe is the former director of the DreamYard Art Center in the South Bronx where she taught and directed arts and social justice programming for young people. 

Nakia Hill is the Director of Communications for Mayor Michelle Wu's Community Engagement Cabinet for the City of Boston. She is a  founding board member of Boston Art Review. In 2018, she was named one of seven Boston Artists-in-Residence by Mayor Marty Walsh exploring how art influences government policy impacting our community. As a writer, Hill's work focuses on how women can use writing as a tool for healing and advocacy. Her first collection of poetry entitled Water Carrier,  inspired by Solange's  A Seat at the Table, was released in 2018. Hill is also the creator of the Boston’s Most Resilient Women project which tells the resiliency stories of women of color and is the founder of Girls, Write!, a creative writing and publishing program for girls of color in Boston.