Lenelle Moïse, Poet Laureate of Northampton 2010-2012

(photo by Vanessa Vargas)

The Northampton Arts Council is proud to announce the selection of Lenelle Moïse, poet, playwright and performance artist, as Poet Laureate of Northampton for 2010-2012.

The Northampton Poet Laureate position is a two-year term during which the poet will be responsible for educating the public of the importance of poetry through activities of interest to the chosen poet. The selection committee read poetry by various nominees, discussed a wide range of qualities in all their work, and considered their success in the larger poetry world. This year the selection committee chose a poet who is innovative, dynamic and a slam-style poet. By majority vote, Lenelle Moïse was selected. Past poet laureates include Lesléa Newman, Jack Gilbert, Janet Aalfs and Martin Espada.

Lenelle Moïse creates jazz-infused, hip-hop bred, politicized and performable texts about Haitian-American identity, creative resistance and the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality and spirituality. She recites poetry with fervor and with movement. In addition to featured appearances at theatres, bookstores, cafes and national conferences, Moïse has performed at the Louisiana Superdome, the United Nations, Off-Broadway at the Culture Project and as part of the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, the National Queer Arts Festival and Estrojam. Her autobiographical one-woman show Womb-Words, Thirsting has induced standing ovations at dozens of colleges across the United States, including Northwestern University, Williams College, the Ohio State University, Evergreen State College and Louisiana State University. Her writing has been published in several anthologies including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution and We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists. Her essays have been featured in Utne Reader and Make/Shift Magazine. Also a professional theatre artist, Moïse graduated with a BA from Ithaca College ('02) and an MFA in Playwriting from Smith College ('04). She is the 2009-2010 recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Poetry. Curve Magazine calls her debut poetry CD Madivinez "Piercing, covering territory both intimate and political...vivid and powerful." Moïse was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has lived in Northampton since 2002.

Lenelle Moïse is the first performance poet to take on the laureateship. Jim Neill, Arts Council board president and chair of the Poet Laureate committee, said, “Lenelle’s poems begin on the page but radiate from her core being in a live setting; the difference between a blueprint and the fully realized building.” Moreover, Neill went on to say, “the selection team was tangibly excited about her nomination and acceptance of the post.”