MoAD’s Poets-in-Residence program was founded in 2018 to provide writers with opportunities to respond to contemporary art of the African Diaspora and extend the reach of the museum through programming and educational workshops with local high school students.

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The residency welcomes writers to pursue their own writing projects in addition to responding to MoAD’s current exhibitions. The residency requires that writers implement a school-based writing program in partnership with Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco.

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Residencies last for one academic semester or 4 months. The workshops include at least 6 site visits to the school and one visit with students at the museum. Poets-in-Residence will engage with the public through community writing workshops and culminating public programs including a student poetry reading and resident poetry reading.  

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This year’s residency will run from September 1-December 31, 2024.

Reggie Edmonds-Vasquez (They/Them) is a poet, educator, and cultural curator from Richmond, CA. Their work, which examines the intersection of Black, Queer, and Gender diverse identities intersect, has been selected for fellowships and awards from Nomadic Press, the Afro Urban Society, Shuffle Collective and others. Their poem, Aerodynamics of the American Negro, was a finalist for the 2022 Red Wheel Barrow Poetry Prize. They currently can be found as the Program Director of Rich Oak Events and the 2024 Co-Champion of the Berkeley Poetry Slam.

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‍reelaviolette botts-ward, PhD, is a homegirl, artist, and community curator from Philadelphia, PA. ree is a poet, a professor, a lover of life, a writer, and a dreamer.

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She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the REPAIR Project at the University of California, San Francisco, and will begin a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship there in the fall. At UCSF, ree brings radical Black feminist healing arts to healthcare and medical science spaces. She is also the founder of blackwomxnhealing, where she curates courses, exhibits, publications, and performances for and by Black womxn.

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Her first book, mourning my inner[blackgirl]child, was published with Nomadic Press in 2021, and she has published articles, book chapters, and creative works with the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, Routledge Press, and Medical Anthropology Quarterly, among others. She also serves as a Contributor in Residence for Columbia University’s Synapsis: a Journal for Health Humanities, where she writes about art, spirituality, and healing for practitioners and community audiences.

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ree received her PhD in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, her MA in African American studies from UCLA, and her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College. She has also taught courses in the African American Studies department at Merritt Community College in Oakland, California, and a course called #BlackFeministHealingArts in UCSF’s Medical Anthropology department. For more on ree’s work, visit blackwomxnhealing.com / @blackwomxnhealing / @dr.reelaviolette on instagram.