In the Garden led by award-winning poet Maria Fernanda, will be hosted at Tudor Place Historic House & Garden. This program is co-presented with the DC Preservation League, as well as a part the ongoing interview series a poetry garden, reaching across DC's eight wards.

Enjoy an afternoon with special guest Matthew B. Kelley in conversation with a poetry garden founder María Fernanda to discuss their creative and historic connections to the gardens.

Guests are encouraged to arrive at 1:30pm for a garden tour or a map for a self-guided experience.

dcpreservation.org/event/in-the-garden-part-of-the-poetry-garden-series/

Join award-winning poet María Fernanda for a poetry workshop inspired by a range of generative writing exercises stemming from percussive speeches and various genres of music inspired by nature. apoetmuseum.org/events

Feel free to bring your own sound to share!

This one-hour workshop is $20, as part of María Fernanda discounted workshops to provide greater access to the community. Consider gifting a workshop to a friend!

Click the “Sign up” button below and, within What’s this for?, please type in “Tempo at APM” with your email address. You will receive a Welcome Note closer to the workshop date.

*Please note that registration is on Venmo due to the cost of ticketing platforms and the seating capacity of the venue. While the Venmo platform was used successfully by poetry participants from January 2024 to May 2025, please contact our team here if you experience any concerns.

“Poems are works—spoken, sang, hummed, written—created with the intention to express an idea or emotion.” — María Fernanda

Sign up on-site to share your work aloud at our newest open mic series curated by award-winning poet María Fernanda (she/hers). She believes that Poetry, like us, exists in many forms—spoken word, blues, performance/theatre, hip-hop, and more. Bring poems, songs, raps, monologues, positive affirmations and more! Literary work at any creative stage is welcomed: new sh*t, draft, final, published, published-but-the-poem-been-lookin-a-little-different-now and more! Each reader will have approximately 3 minutes to make room for as many readers as possible. Hosted by poet María Fernanda (she/hers). This event is one-hour.

Details — politics-prose.com/event/2025-06-05/hour-poetry-open-mic-created-and-hosted-poet-maria-fernanda-union-market

Learn to write the Flamenca, a poetic form resembling the rhythms of Flamenco. Details here: writer.org/event/40-pop-up-writing-the-flamenca/

“Poems are works—spoken, sang, hummed, written—created with the intention to express an idea or emotion.” — María Fernanda

Sign up on-site to share your work aloud at our newest open mic series curated by award-winning poet María Fernanda (she/hers). She believes that Poetry, like us, exists in many forms—spoken word, blues, performance/theatre, hip-hop, and more. Bring poems, songs, raps, monologues, positive affirmations and more! Literary work at any creative stage is welcomed: new sh*t, draft, final, published, published-but-the-poem-been-lookin-a-little-different-now and more! Each reader will have approximately 3 minutes to make room for as many readers as possible. Hosted by poet María Fernanda (she/hers). Our soft-launch will include a mini-workshop element. This event is one-hour.

Details — politics-prose.com/hour-poetry-open-mic

Experience Malcolm X's enduring influence through spoken word and live jazz in this dynamic program presented in partnership with the American Poetry Museum. Hosted by poet María Fernanda, the event features performances by acclaimed poets Sasa Aakil, Kenneth Carroll, and Laini Mataka. Jazz musician Pepe Gonzales leads the musical accompaniment along with William Knowles and Greg C. Halloway, weaving together rhythm, verse, and memory in celebration of Malcolm’s vision.

Tickets —  nmaahc.si.edu/events/words-and-music-malcolm-xs-legacy-verse-and-sound

Event Thumbnail on calendar: "Untitled circa 1962 (Malcolm X at Michaux's Bookstore - Looking Down)." From the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, courtesy of Yoors Family and L. Parker Stephenson Gallery.

Bloodletting Virtual Release Party!

A book release celebration and reading for Kimberly Reyes with special guests Jennifer Maritza McCauley, Maria Fernanda, & Gabriel Ramirez.

Join with this link:  https://asu.zoom.us/j/83927030287?from=addon

What defines an era? For you. For us. Explore how a personal era can become indicative of a collective era by considering three historic series of poems, each marking a different era. We will also write our own. Prepare to leave with three new poems and more avenues for inspiration.

This one-hour workshop is $20, as part of María Fernanda discounted workshops to provide greater access to the community. Consider gifting a workshop to a friend!

Click the “Sign up” button below and, within What’s this for?, please type in “Era at APM” with your email address. You will receive a Welcome Note closer to the workshop date.

*Please note that registration is on Venmo due to the cost of ticketing platforms and the seating capacity of the venue. While the Venmo platform was used successfully by poetry participants from January 2024 to April 2025, please contact our team here if you experience any concerns.

Black Girls in Art Spaces DMV Chapter x Black Girls Writers Room

Explore generations of language in this free poetry workshop with award-winning poet María Fernanda, from DC, who invites participants to learn how to write a contrapuntal poem, a form blending two or more poems and read in multiple ways. Generative writing exercises will be inspired by excerpts of poems, in-library literary archives, and other sources. Participants will consider the many histories of a word, a name, a home, and so much more. This is for first-time writers and poetry enthusiasts alike. Note: Participants will create in-workshop poems and use them to blend; no need to bring poems already written.

Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center at the National Museum of Women in the Art.

Details at politics-prose.com/bravo-choffel

With wit and vulnerability, Brandel France de Bravo explores resilience in the face of climate change and a global pandemic, race, and the concept of a self, all while celebrating the power of breath as "baptism on repeat." Whether her inspiration is twelfth-century Buddhist mind-training slogans or the one-footed crow who visits her daily, France de Bravo mines the tension between the human desire for permanence and control, and life's fluid, ungraspable nature. Poem by poem, essay by essay, she builds a temple to the perpetual motion of transformation, the wondrous churn of change and exchange that defines companionship, marriage, and ceding our place on Earth: "not dying, but molting." 

Brandel France de Bravo is the author of the poetry collections Provenance and Mother, Loose and the editor of Mexican Poetry Today: 20/20 Voices. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2024, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, Conduit, Diode, Salamander, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere.

Dear Wallace addresses the poet and insurance executive Wallace Stevens in an attempt to reconsider art, power, and creativity amid the demands of everyday responsibility. Exploring relationships between modernism, motherhood, poetry, and privilege, the speaker of these poems puts her daily routines in dialogue with his. Curious, funny, and wry, Julie Choffel confronts Stevens as an unlikely peer who lived and wrote in the same city and weather as she does now, imagining a present-day conversation about the many ways creative practice is informed by social context. As we struggle to marry creative independence with our communal obligations, the questions in these poems are more urgent than ever. Stevens, a proxy for beauty, inventiveness, and legitimacy, becomes an audience for the ennui, anxiety, and politics of care that characterize another kind of writer's life today.

Julie Choffel is an assistant professor in English at the University of Connecticut, Hartford. She is the author of The Hello Delay. 

Bravo and Choffel will be in conversation with María Fernanda (she/hers), the founder of a poetry garden, the series where Black poets and gardeners discuss historic connections to gardens. Awarded The Norma Elia Cantú Award in Creative Writing, her poetry appears in Cheryl Clarke's born in a bed of good lessons inspired by Lucille Clifton, Cave Canem's Dogbytes, and elsewhere. Learn more about her poetry and workshops at mariafernandapoet.com.

This event is free with first come, first served seating.

To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event. 

Speakeasy Open Mic! is programmed by host Mariah “ Beyond Your Definition” Barber (they /she). On April 18, award-winning poet María Fernanda (she/hers) will feature! Please bring YOUR talent to share at the Open Mic.

Learn more about the host and the event below.

Details — busboysandpoets.com/events/th-evt-44813361/

Booked.

Booked.

Generations of people, much like language, change over time. Every once and a while, there are unknown relatives to add to our family tree or new words in an etymology chart. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to select a word, follow its root on an etymology chart, and write a poem inspired by each new word. Family tree templates will also be available to fill in with poetry. Generative writing exercises will be inspired by excerpts of poems, literary archives, and more. 

Reading:
Theophanies by Sarah Ghazal Ali (9781949944587)

RSVP — politics-prose.com/list/online-class-etymology-writing-your-literary-lineage-poetry-workshop-2543

Booked.

What is your process for revision? How many of your works have something new to say? We will explore how revising can be rejuvenating. Create, develop, and share techniques. Strengthen your personal revision process. Feel free to bring old or recently written work. We will do one or two quick writing exercises and then the majority of this experience will be about revision practices and reviewing your own individual work. This is not a workshop where everyone reads your work and provides you critique in the widely-recognized structure. Instead, we will try a new method, developed by María Fernanda, inspired by linguistics.

This one-hour workshop is $20, as part of María Fernanda discounted workshops to provide greater access to the community. Consider gifting a workshop to a friend!

Click the “Sign up” button below and, within What’s this for?, please type in “Revise at APM” with your email address. You will receive a Welcome Note closer to the workshop date.

*Please note that registration is on Venmo due to the cost of ticketing platforms and the seating capacity of the venue. While the Venmo platform was used successfully by poetry participants from January 2024 to March 2025, please contact our team here if you experience any concerns.

Booked.

Booked.

Honor the life of poet, activist, and renowned legend Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni with fellow poets and writers based in Washington, DC. Bring one of your favorite Nikki Giovanni poems, one of your own poems, or both to read aloud at this Open Mic. This event is free and open to the public. We will have a sign up sheet for people to read. This event will be one hour. Early arrival is encouraged. The title of this event comes from Nikki Giovanni's poem "Because," selected by the creative producer of this event, María Fernanda.

This event is free and open to the public. Early arrival is encouraged

Tickets at Kramers

Booked.

Annette Lawrence, Natasha Tretheway, Rita Dove — How do we remember? Join this diarist workshop where participants write their own set of creative journal entries, monologues, letter correspondence, and overall new creative works. Participants will explore published diary entries, monologues, epistolary writing, and more.

Reading:

Bellocq’s Ophelia by Natasha Tretheway

Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove

RSVP — politics-prose.com/list/online-class-writing-now-monologue-poetry-2544

in-person

a collective poetry experience

Read and listen to Clifton's works in conversation with the desert. Generative writing exercises will be inspired by her works and writers in the same landscape from the 1970’s to now. Come ready to write poems inspired by her work and generative literary exercises with award-winning poet María Fernanda. This one-hour workshop is $20, as part of María Fernanda discounted workshops to provide greater access to the community. Consider gifting a workshop to a friend!

Click the “Sign up” button below and, within What’s this for?, please type in “Clifton at APM” with your email address. You will receive a Welcome Note closer to the workshop date.

*Please note that registration is on Venmo due to the cost of ticketing platforms and the seating capacity of the venue. While the Venmo platform was used successfully by poetry participants from January 2024 to February 2025, please contact our team here if you experience any concerns.

Booked.

Booked.

A group of strangers meet at a dinner party, only to find that they have more in common than not.

Tickets here — Oye DC is a night of English, Spanish, and Spanglish storytelling and poetry that celebrates Latine voices from across the Washington metro area.

Following the show there will be a talk-back with the artists.

Celebrate the life of poet, activist, and renowned legend Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni with fellow poets and writers based in Washington, DC. Bring one of your favorite Nikki Giovanni poems and a poem of your own to read aloud. We will have a sign-up sheet for people to read. This event will be one hour. Featured readers include Tricia Elam Walker, Nina Angela Mercer, Holly Bass, and María Fernanda. 

This event is free and open to the public. Early arrival is encouraged.

The title of this event comes from Nikki Giovanni's poem "My House," selected by the creative producer of this event, María Fernanda.

To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event. 

See more at Politics & Prose

Booked.

Lecture and Discussion with Writing Exercises. 

Participants will learn the classic Japanese genre Zuihitsu, defined by its literary emulation of a painter’s brushstrokes. This style gathers loosely connected single-line essays, fragmented ideas and, as of late, recycled images to create a single poem. Participants will delve into generative writing activities, where they will be encouraged to explore excerpts (or fragments) of flyers, magazine spreads, artist interviews, and more. 

RSVP — politics-prose.com/list/online-class-break-vase-poetry-workshop-writing-zuihitsu-2542