Cyrée Jarelle Johnson Is Inaugural Poet-in-Residence at Brooklyn Public Library

Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang announced yesterday that Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, currently a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellow and author of Slingshot (Nightboat, 2019), has been chosen as the Brooklyn Public Library's inaugural Poet-in-Residence! The residency will offer resources, time, a stipend, and mentorship from Chang, who says that Johnson's "powerful intelligence, commitment to underrepresented communities, loyalty to teaching and research, and undeniable talent in the field of poetry demonstrates all that is possible now." 

Johnson's response to the new role:

"A lot of my poetry education focused on individual poems of first books. I can't wait to explore what comes after that with Tina's guidance. I hope to make the most of mentorship by completing my second and third manuscripts tentatively entitled Psychedelica and Travesties respectively. I also look forward to planning events that bring disabled poetics to a wider audience, particularly in a city as inaccessible as New York."

Find out more about the Brooklyn Public Library's Poet-in-Residence process, hopes, and dreams at Patch.