The Poets' Studio First Anniversary
A Reading & Conversation
The Poets' Studio opened its doors at Twelve Gates one year ago. Each month, we invited a featured poet for a reading and a generative writing workshop with a focus of their choosing. Curated by Sanam Sheriff and supported by 12G, all Poets' Studio events are free to the public, designed to create a space for local writers to connect, learn, and commune over the craft of poetry. It has been a joy to witness the community grow, to welcome new faces each month, and to welcome back folks who have been with us from the very beginning.
To celebrate this milestone of The Poets' Studio's first anniversary, we are inviting back all our featured poets from year #1 for a special reading, conversation, and Q&A. These writers bring such a beautiful range of style, approach, and care to what poetry can be. Read on to know who's on our line-up, and RSVP below to join us on April 23rd, at 7pm sharp!
The Poets' Studio First Anniversary: A Reading & Conversation Featuring:
Taylor Alyson Lewis is a poet and high school English teacher based in Philadelphia. He holds a BA in English from Spelman College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden. At Rutgers, he taught first-year composition and was a research assistant and project manager at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice. He has also been a visiting instructor in creative writing at Bryn Mawr College. Taylor has received fellowships to support his writing from Lambda Literary, Fine Arts Work Center, Tin House Summer Workshop, and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, where he was awarded the Queer Writer Fellowship in Prose. His work appears in Nat. Brut, Poetry Online, Voicemail Poems, Columbia Journal, Split This Rock’s Poem of the Week Series, and elsewhere. Image is by Michelle Schapiro.
Kai Davis (she/they) is a Black, Queer, multidisciplinary artist, performer, educator, and the '24-'25 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Her work explores Blackness, Queerness, womanhood, grief, and the many ways these themes converge. Davis has performed for TED, CNN, BET, PBS, and NPR, among others. She is a two-time international grand slam champion, having won the Brave New Voices international youth poetry slam in 2011 and the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational in 2016. In 2017, Davis received the Leeway Transformation Award for her years of creating art for social change in Philadelphia. She is currently a co-organizer and the creative director for The Philly Pigeon Collective's Late(ish) Poetry Show, which was awarded the Poetry Foundation’s Equity in Verse Grant in 2023 and 2024. and the William Penn Foundation's Arts & Culture Grant in 2026. Her work has been published by 2 Pens & Lint (2012), The Offing (2018), The Shade Journal (2019), and Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (2021), and is forthcoming in Obsidian Literature & Arts.
Aishvarya Arora is a poet, teaching artist, and cultural organizer from Queens, New York. They’re the author of Mr. Time (Gold Line Press, forthcoming 2026). Their writing has appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, The Brooklyn Rail, and Foglifter, among other publications. Currently, they live in Ithaca, New York where they teach creative writing at Cornell University and create poetry ephemera through their micropress, Lavender Codex.
Kirwyn Sutherland is a Clinical Research Professional and poet who makes poems centering the black experience in America. He was one of 5 poets to represent the Philadelphia Pigeon Poetry Slam Team at the National Poetry Slam in Oakland California in 2015. Kirwyn’s work has been published in American Poetry Review, Cosmonauts Ave., Blueshift Journal, Voicemail Poems, APIARY Magazine, FOLDER, The Wanderer and elsewhere. Kirwyn has served as Editor of Lists/Book Reviewer for WusGood magazine,poetry editor for APIARY Magazine and is a Watering Hole fellow. Kirwyn has a chapbook, Jump Ship, on Thread Makes Blanket Press.
mace dent johnson is a poet from Columbus, Georgia. They received an MFA in Poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, where they then taught as the senior poet in residence. They are a fellow of Cave Canem, Bread Loaf, and the Watering Hole. They were a finalist for the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics Prize and the Ploughshares Emerging Writers contest. mace lives in Brooklyn, and also works in essay, theater, and collage.
Marina Avery Robinson is a trans poet and punk from Orlando. She is a recent MFA graduate from the University of Pittsburgh. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, Lambda Literary, The Watering Hole, and Community of Writers. Previously, she was the recipient of two Pushcart nominations, the 2023 Porter House Review Editor’s Prize, and second place at the 2024 Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh contest. Her poems can be found in Palette, Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, and others. You can find her wherever the music is loudest.
Saskia is a social scientist, educator, and writer from Philly by way of Haiti. A master of economics with accolades in research and poetry, she has been published across newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. Saskia currently serves as an adjunct professor of economics, research consultant, organizer, teaching artist, and creative writer. More from this eldest daughter @saskiakercy and bysaskia.co.
Sanam Sheriff is a queer poet, artist, and educator from Bangalore, India. Their debut poetry collection HUM won the Backwaters Press Poetry Prize and will be published by the University of Nebraska Press in October, 2026 . Sanam has received support from the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, Kundiman, Tin House, the Fine Arts Work Center, Brew & Forge, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and The Watering Hole. Sanam’s work has been published in POETRY, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Indiana Review, The Rumpus, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Offing, The Adroit Journal, Outlook India, and elsewhere. Sanam holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. From 2022-2025, they served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College where they organized the Reading Series. Sanam lives in Philadelphia, where they curate The Poets’ Studio at Twelve Gates Arts.