Join Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola and the Mayor's Office of Arts & Culture for the second biennial Roxbury Poetry Festival at the Bruce C. Bolling Building on Saturday, August 5, 2023!

The festival features several award-winning writers, panelists, and curators, and includes a keynote address from 2022 MacArthur Fellow, poet and essayist, Hanif Abdurraqib. The day-long event culminates with a Publisher’s Poetry Slam sponsored by Button Poetry that yields a book contract for a local writer.

Other events include a craft talk on politics and poetry by Ruth Lily Fellow and activist, Darius Simpson, and a workshop from Guggenheim Fellow Eileen Myles. The festival includes workshops taught by several local writers including Nakia Hill, Paloma Valenzuela, Brandie Blaze, Ekua Holmes and a pop-up open mic hosted by If You Can Feel It, You Can Speak It and so much more.

This festival is free and open to the public

Register today!

Our arts and crafts workshops are led by local artists. They're held Tuesday through Friday in July and August and run from 10 a.m. until 12 p.m. These drop-in workshops encourage kids to explore their creativity through projects like mask making, crayon art, watercolor and much more. Supplies are provided, but you'll need to bring your creativity! 

This series is completely free and open to Boston residents. These workshops will take place in various parks throughout the City of Boston.

Registration is encouraged so we know how many supplies to bring (pre-registration is required for groups of 8 or more). Please email allison.singer2@boston.gov to register.

This series is also weather-dependent. Check our social media pages for updated weather info regarding this series. Follow us on social media for the latest updates on events: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School (LSC) is running a series of workshops building off of our monthly CORI sealing events. In addition to sealing clients’ records, this revised series seeks to assist clients with elements of the re-entry process such as:

• finding housing,
• securing CORI-friendly employment,
• pursuing education and job training, and
• developing financial literacy, among other subjects.

The setup of the events will mirror that of a job or career fair, with representatives operating tables in the library space and speaking to potential clients about their organizations. Additionally, the events will have brief presentations on the CORI sealing process open to clients and attending organizations.

We held our pilot workshop on April 5, and we are now planning our second session. The workshop will take place on Wednesday, July 12, from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. at the Roxbury/Nubian Square Branch of the Boston Public Library (149 Dudley St, Roxbury, MA 02119). 

We would absolutely love to see turnout from across Boston, as a number of organizations planning to attend the Roxbury/Nubian Square event serve individuals across Greater Boston.