Porsha Olayiwola

Porsha Olayiwola is the author of i shimmer sometimes, too (Button Poetry, 2019). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, Black Warrior Review, AGNI, The Boston Globe, Essence, and elsewhere. She served as Boston’s third poet laureate, from 2019 to 2025; was an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow; is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion; founded the Roxbury Poetry Festival; and has been an artist-in-residence at Brown University and at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Assistant professor of poetry at Emerson College and cofounder of the literary gathering space and bookstore JustBook-ish, she writes, lives, and loves in Boston. (updated 10/2026)