Blackbird Poetry Festival
The 18th Annual Blackbird Poetry Festival
SAVE THE DATE: Thursday, April 23, 2026
The Blackbird Poetry Festival will return with a day of events dedicated to Poetry. Please mark your calendars now for the events below! If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact Tara Hart (thart@howardcc.edu) or Brian Martin (bmartin@howardcc.edu).
Festival Events
Poetry Police 10am-11:30am
Morning Songs Writing Workshop 11:00am-12:15pm - Kittleman Room in Duncan Hall, Room 100
Featuring Truth Thomas
Join Howard County’s inaugural Poet Laureate, Truth Thomas, at a Skinny Poetry Workshop for an inspiring late-morning writing session on the HCC campus. In this special workshop, Thomas will teach the Skinny— the dynamic poetic form he created that has gained international popularity and is now taught in classrooms including Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just beginning, this engaging, hands-on workshop will guide you through the music, precision, and expressive power of the Skinny form. Participants will leave with new drafts, fresh techniques, and renewed creative energy. Don’t miss this opportunity to write, learn, and create with one of the region’s leading literary voices. To learn more about the formal rules of this fixed poetry form, go to The Skinny Poetry Journal; for more information on the festival session, contact Tara Hart or Brian Martin.
Sunbird Reading 2:00pm-3:30pm - Kittleman Room in Duncan Hall, Room 100
Featuring Sarah Kay
Sunbird features readings from festival special guest Sarah Kay and Howard County Youth Poet Laureate Penelope Tofigh, followed by another passionate open mic welcoming students, faculty, staff, and community members for the afternoon of poetry which then-Provost Dr. Shantay Grays last year called “one of the premier events at the college.” For more information, contact Tara Hart or Brian Martin.
Nightbird Reading 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Kittleman Room in Duncan Hall, Room DH-100
Nightbird culminates the daylong celebration of poetry, featuring festival special guest Sarah Kay, introduced by poet Teri Ellen Cross Davis following their conversation on the set of HoCoPoLitSo’s The Writing Life. A reception with book sales and signing will follow the readings. General admission to Nightbird is available NOW while seating lasts for $25 per person, with discounted rates available for educators and students. For questions or issues purchasing tickets, to request accommodations, or to discuss attendance by a larger group, please contact HoCoPoLitSo via e-mail to info@hocopolitso.org, or by phone call to (443) 518-4568.
Festival Poet — Sarah Kay
SARAH KAY is a writer, performer, and educator from New York City who has been performing her poetry since she was fourteen years old. She has performed on Broadway, at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the United Nations, the Sundance Festival, and many other venues of note, but has also shared her poetry in cornfields in Iowa, the Royal Danish Theater in Denmark, a public square in Estonia, the back rooms of dive bars, middle school gymnasiums, and many places in between. Sarah holds a Master’s Degree in the Art of Teaching from Brown University and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Grinnell College. She is the author of five books of poetry: B, No Matter the Wreckage, The Type, All Our Wild Wonder, and her newest collection A Little Daylight Left. Sarah is the founder and co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that uses spoken word poetry to entertain, educate, and empower students and communities worldwide. For more, see www.kaysarahsera.com. www.kaysarahsera.com
Festival Host — Teri Ellen Cross Davis
TERI ELLEN CROSS DAVIS is the author of a more perfect Union, winner of the 2019 Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, and of Haint, winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. In 2022 she was one of two state-wide winners of a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist Award, and the 2020 winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Award. A Cave Canem fellow, she has been awarded numerous scholarships, residences, and fellowships, including the Community of Writers Workshop, and her work has been featured in many anthologies and journals including Academy of American Poets. Davis served as HoCoPoLitSo’s Bauder Writer-in-Residence for the 2019–2020 academic year. Learn more at www.poetsandparents.com/teri.
Master Workshop Facilitator — Truth Thomas
TRUTH THOMAS is a singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and raised in Washington, DC. He previously recorded as Glenn Edward Thomas for Capitol Records. He is the founder of Cherry Castle Publishing and studied creative writing at Howard University under Dr. Tony Medina. Thomas earned his MFA in poetry from New England College. His poetry collections include Party of Black, A Day of Presence, Bottle of Life, and Speak Water, which won the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry. He is also the author of the children’s book My TV Is Not the Boss of Me by Cory Thomas. A 2025 Outstanding Artist Howie Award recipient, Thomas has served as HoCoPoLitSo’s 2007–2008 Bauder Writer-in-Residence and is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Howard County, Maryland. His poems have appeared in more than 150 publications, including The 100 Best African American Poems (Ed. Nikki Giovanni) and This Is the Honey (Ed. Kwame Alexander). Thomas is the creator of the Skinny poetry form and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Skinny Poetry Journal. Find more at www.truththomas.me.