About the Artist
María Fernanda (she/hers) performs her original poetry, delivers speeches, produces programming and presents historic research. In September 2025, she presented her poetry in Greece at Rosemary’s House. Her latest U.S. appearances include The National Mall, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Brooklyn Museum, The Phoenix Art Museum (Arizona), The Broadway League, The Massachusetts Reading Association, and elsewhere. María Fernanda is a recipient of literary appointments from The Academy of American Poets, The Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities where created more opportunities for literary artists across the United States.
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María Fernanda Chamorro (she/hers) is an award-winning poet and a creative producer with prize-winning collaborations. Awarded the Norma Elia Cantú Award in Creative Writing, her poetry explores the intimacy of sisterhood, the anchor of intergenerational coexistence, and grief. María Fernanda is a recipient of literary appointments from The National Endowment for the Arts (2021), The Academy of American Poets, The Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
In February 2025, she is the first poet to present at Brookings Institution, a global think tank that conducts in-depth, nonpartisan research to improve policy and governance at local, national, and global levels.
She is a Two-TimeBest of the Net Nominee. Her latest work appears in The Hill Rag, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4, Cave Canem: Dogbytes, and Cheryl Clarke's born in a bed of good lessons: poems inspired by the works of Lucille Clifton. María Fernanda is a published contributor of The Library of Congress.
She is the founder and executive producer of the independent interview series a poetry garden, where Black poets and gardeners discuss their creative and historical connections to gardens.
She served as an Inaugural The Academy of American Poets Poetry Coalition Fellow, a Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Judge for New York City Writing, The Black Artists and Designers Association Secondary Advisor at Arizona State University, and a guest speaker for Lincoln Center Education as an Artist in the Industry.
María Fernanda performs her poetry across the United States, including The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Brooklyn Museum, Arizona’s Phoenix Art Museum, MoMa PS1, Texas' Denton Black Film Festival, and more. MacArthur Genius Award grantee Terrance Hayes selected her work as a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Amistad Award for College Writers in Poetry.
María Fernanda often reads poetry in service of locally-rooted national initiatives and conversations, including The Bronx is Reading’s The Bronx Book Festival, #PoetsforPuertoRico, The Rainbow Book Fair, #MeTooMovement Freelancers Hub, DC’s Youth Leadership Foundation, and others.
Serving as The Academy of American Poets Poetry Coalition Fellow, she organizedOf Restless Gardens, a digital event was inspired by Linda Hogan's "Map" and part of the Academy of American Poets’ Poetry and Environmental Justice programming.
In 2015, she spoke at New York University to a lecture hall of college students visiting from across the New York City metropolitan area to learn about entrepreneurship.
As part of 2024 Best of D.C., TheWashington City Paper recognized the DCPL Mount Pleasant location as a second runner up in Best Library Branch of 2024 where María Fernanda programmed four poetry programs as part of their offerings, resulting in nearly 60% of their overall poetry programming.
Popular Services
by María Fernanda
Performances
Award-winning poet María Fernanda performs across the United States. Her practice experiments with genealogy charts (inspired by poet Sarah Ghazal Ali) and etymology charts based on María Fernanda’s independent research at Planet Word. Each chart placeholder for a name or word is replaced by lyric. In person, she presents her pieces on broadsides.
Programming
Award-winning poet María Fernanda specializes as a creative producer for the performing arts. She produces venue-wide live productions (3k+ attendees), commissions new work, develops residencies for both individuals and groups (70+), and possesses extensive artist contract management experience.
María Fernanda collaborated with home and lifestyle boutique Salt & Sundry to facilitate a restorative poetry event.
Literary Conversations & Facilitation
Award-winning poet María Fernanda leads literary workshops in the form of collective literary conversations and experiences. She conceives and develops each with the intention of supporting writers in their literary career. Participants create new work within her personalized framework, as well as consider unique ways to approach writing.
María Fernanda collaborated with Black Girls in Art Spaces and The National Museum of Women in the Arts to present María Fernanda’s A Black Girl’s Poetry Workshop .
Hear from audience members, workshop participants, and more!
Themes
“María Fernanda’s activism and artwork offers various insights into the question of justice. It was important to me to gather a group of writers whose craft extends to multiple genres, and who are active literary citizens.”
— Maya Marshall, Haymarket Books for Denton Record-Chronicle
Love
Sisterhood
Body Image
Community / Intergenerational
Family / Friends as Family
Friendship
District of Columbia
Distant Family
Gender Expression / Gender Queer / Gender Identity / Gender /
Sexism
Grief / Healing with grief
Health / Health Care / Illness /
LGBTQIA2S+
Race / Ethnicity / Racism
African American
Multi-Racial Latina / Latine
Left to Right: María Fernanda, JP Howard, Nicole Shawan Junior presenting at The Rainbow Book Fair, the largest LGBTQ+ book event in the United States, held at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City.