February-March 2023 IARP Residency: Porsha Olayiwola

Porsha Olayiwola is a native of Chicago who writes, lives, and loves in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator, and curator who uses Afrofuturism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. She is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival. Olayiwola is Brown University’s 2019 Heimark Artist-In-Residence as well as the 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She is a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Olayiwola earned her MFA in poetry from Emerson College and is the author of i shimmer sometimes, too. Olayiwola is the current Poet Laureate for the city of Boston. Her work can be found in or forthcoming from with TriQuarterly Magazine, Black Warrior Review, The Boston Globe, Essence Magazine, Redivider, The Academy of American Poets, Netflix, Wildness Press, The Museum of Fine Arts, and elsewhere.

Vessna Scheff is an artist currently based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Beginning her artist career in San Francisco, Scheff began by playing ukulele after acquiring one from a thrift store for $14. Inspired by personal stories of growth and interpersonal relationships, she began writing intimate music and playing throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at venues such as the Bazaar Cafe, The Fillmore, The Hotel Utah, and The Lost Church. In 2014, she began experimenting with visual art, utilizing projections in her musical performances and collaborating with dancers and poets in interdisciplinary performance. In 2015, Scheff moved to the East Coast where she met and began collaborating with Lee Clarke, a Philadelphia based music producer. While in Philadelphia, she performed at venues, galleries and museums such as Johnny Brenda’s, World Cafe Live, Boot & Saddle, Urban Art Gallery, The Barnes Museum, The Affordable Art Fair, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. In spring of 2022, she graduated with an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, and is currently writing and recording a visual album titled Nevermind the Moon, inspired by Adult Skate Nights, pairing 80’s beats with 90’s R&B vocal melodies in a celebratory call for intimate connection.

Crystal Valentine is a Black, queer woman from the Bronx now residing in Boston, Massachusetts. A former New York City Youth Poet Laureate and two-time winner of the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, Crystal has been offered fellowships from Callaloo, Tin House and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences. She is the winner of Palette Poetry’s 2021 Emerging Poet Prize, selected by Kelli Russell Agodon. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic Anthology (Haymarket Books), Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Magazine, Winter Tangerine and elsewhere. She received an MFA from New York University and is the Festival Manager for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival as well as an English Professor at Curry College. When she isn’t writing or agonizing over line breaks, you can find her watching anime and dreaming. Instagram: @crystalvalentine94