13th Annual Mujeres en el Movimiento, Latinx History Project.
Performances & Conversations
National Gallery of Art: Where We At!
Join award-winning poet María Fernanda for an in-gallery poetry writing workshop inspired by the exhibition Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985.
Friday
November 7 at 12:30pm
The Hour
Sign up on-site to share your work aloud at our newest poet mic series created by award-winning poet María Fernanda. María Fernanda curates a book list for audiences and the event is open to all.
First Thursdays of the Month
7:00pm
Blues Poetry & The Cento (4 weeks)
Explore a deep understanding of Latin American and African quilting traditions, a history of the blues poem in all its forms , and write new poems.
Tuesdays
November 4, 11, 18, & December 2
The Black West (One day)
Read and listen to live recordings of Black poets, based in Arizona, read their poetry, changing desert communities.
Thursday
December 11 at 6:00pm
Drop-In Style
This experience is self-guided and focuses on the concept that the American Poetry Museum is a place where people can come in and write poetry throughout the dayy.
Ongoing
Weekends
"Poetry is film's first cousin." — Nikky Finney
Hi Friends, Fellow Creatives, Lovers of Art, and Curious Public! My screenplay and poetry were selected to be further developed! To pay the tuition for this prestigious residency, I am raising funds to meet the upcoming deposit deadlines. Please consider contributing. Thank you!
Slate
Ongoing Programming by María Fernanda
Join Black poets and gardeners as they discuss their creative and historic connections to the gardens in our communities.
In 2024, featured discussions centered on the Trinidad, Anacostia, and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. In 2025, the series launched in Georgetown Heights in collaboration with the DC Preservation League.
a poetry garden series
The Hour series
Sign up on-site to share your work aloud at Politics and Prose’s newest free open mic series, created and hosted by María Fernanda! 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!
These one-hour collective experiences explore various poetic forms and supports writers with their revision practice beyond the wide-recognized workshop style.
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays
honoring nikki series
This initiative finds its shape in the form of workshops, lectures, and readings honoring Nikki Giovanni’s presence in DC. Readings include curated artist and open mic readers/performers to widen the lens in which we remember.
All Events
Featured — BGIAS: Black Girls Writers Room (DMV) @ NMWA
a black girls’ poetry workshop
national museum of women in the arts
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.
Details at Black Girls in Art Spaces.
Review of event here.
Inner Freedom: AfroSurrealism
Onyx: Archiving the Self
How To Begin
DMV Made Festival featuring María Fernanda
Drop-in Style
Honoring Nikki Giovanni: A Close-Reading
DC Metro Bus Poetry Workshop
Parkmont x Jazz in the Park — 3 of 3
Parkmont x Jazz in the Park — 2 of 3
The Hour Open Mic Series
If All the Trees were Pens Ft. María Fernanda
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Writing the Ghazal
Parkmont x Jazz in the Park — 1 of 3
OFFICIAL LAUNCH— The Hour Open Mic Series
In the Garden — a poetry garden x DC Preservation League
SOFT LAUNCH— The Hour Open Mic Series at Politics and Prose
Words & Music at National Museum of African American History and Culture
Workshop $40 Pop Up! Writing the Flamenca — Poetry
Poetry Night Panel — ft. Brandel France de Bravo & Julie Choffel w. María Fernanda
Black Girls In Arts Spaces x BGWR (DMV) @ NMWA
Kimberly Reyes’s Bloodletting Virtual Book Release Party!
Etymology: Writing Your Literary Lineage
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Strategies for Revising Poetry
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Reading Screenplays to Inspire Poetry
Nikki Giovanni: Of Her Quilt
This is Your Poem: A Tribute to Nikki Giovanni
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — A True Revolution: Nikki Giovanni
Parkmont Poetry Field Trip
Break a Vase, A Poetry Workshop: Writing the Zuihitsu
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Equilibrium of a Line
-
Join DC SCORES as we kick off poetry slam season with our middle school performances! Award-winning poet María Fernanda will appear as a poetry judge.
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Entiou
DCZinefest & María Fernanda — Unfolding Poetry
-
We will write short vignettes in narrative form, lyric form, and persona. A vignette is an episodic piece of writing describing a person or a moment in time. Generative writing exercises will be shaped by Bhanu Kapil’s The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, as well as poems by artists Dionne Brand, Sarah Ghazal Ali, and Nikky Finney. Participants will leave with twenty vignettes about pivotal moments or years in history or the writer's life. Four Tuesdays from 10/8/2024 to 10/29/2024 in-person at The Writer's Center
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — flamenca
-
Learn to write the Flamenca, a poetic form resembling the rhythms of Flamenco.
The Flamenca is a cinquian (or a five-line stanza) with defined assonant and syllabic structures. Participants will learn the technique of the original Flamenca literary form, which is defined as mimicking the “clicking” of the flamenco dancer’s heels, however the flamenco dancers’ heels stomp and their castanets click.
With this in mind, María Fernanda will also introduce participants to her expansion on the poetic form. She aligns the flamenco dancer’s percussive footwork—planta, tacón, punta, talón—with the sounds in the Latin alphabet and also pairs flamenco props—floorboard, castanets, and fan—with literary devices.
Participants will read examples of the Flamenca form, write their own poem(s), and learn the various cultural influences on Flamenco with an emphasis on Black diasporic perspectives (contemporary and historic).
This workshop is one hour. This workshop is one hour. You are not required to share or read your poem aloud at the end of workshop as this experience is for you, first.
Register here.
Contrapuntal Workshop —Middle School level
-
Participants will learn the pecha kucha as the Japanese business presentation style as it was originally established and the poetic form, interpreted by poet Terrance Hayes. Poet and educator Michael Frazier contextualizes that the presentational form “consists of only [20] pictures and allows for 20 seconds of speaking per photo.” (Frazier). Hayes uses this format as a framework to form work containing 20 images with a 20-second stanza written in quatrains in his book Lighthead. Instruction will focus on writing about pivotal years, real or fiction, however participants are not limited to do so. Optional pre-read includes Pecha Kucha, Low Coup, Hyperbolic Time Chamber Experimentation with Japanese forms by Michael Frazier. This workshop is an open-lingual space. English and Spanish speakers are welcomed. This will be taught in English.
Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Décima
-
This workshop offers participants an opportunity to delve into the contrapuntal, a poetic form which blends two or more poems to be read in multiple directions. Examples will be provided.
Generative writing exercises will encourage participants to think as curators.
This is an exploration of shared histories across an individual’s work and the development of new interpretations.
The Writer's Center — Writing the Pecha Kucha
-
Learn to write the Décima, an oral Black Ecuadorian poetic form comprising 44-lines, with award-winning poet María Fernanda.
Different from European décima¹ from Spain (i.e., Espinel), the Décima is often memorized by decimeros/es/as/xs (a term used by Salazar, Juan García) in Las Esmeraldas, Ecuador to convey the happenings, customs, and genealogy of a place when traveling. Participants will study examples of this form and write their own through historically contextual, generative writing exercises!
¹Note: Scholars distinguish between forms using uppercase “D” and lowercase "d".
Rompe un jarrón
Break a vase
On Key—Create a Broadside on a Typewriter
ASSEMBLAGE
New Language
So YOU!
-
Well-Read Black Girl
Zuihitsu: Archiving the Self — Poetry Youth Workshop
-
See link.
DC Premiere: Mother Suriname, Mama Sranan presentation with The Embassy of Suriname
-
African Diaspora International Film Festival (ADIFF)
