This Month’s Poet is Raina J. León

She will be giving a reading and leading us through a writing workshop where poets will have the opportunity to generate and share new work.

Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is the 2026-2027 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. She is a mother, daughter, sister, madrina, comadre, partner, poet, writer, and teacher educator. She is the author of black god mother this body, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks,profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. She co-founded the Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series (2024) in Germantown, Philadelphia. She is a recipient of a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant, a Leeway Transformation Award (2025), Letras Boricuas Fellowship (2025), and a Velocity Fund Grant (2026). She teaches poets and writers at the Stonecoast MFA at the University of Southern Maine and will teach poetry at Bryn Mawr College as a visiting professor starting in Fall 2026.

Raina J. León will give a reading and lead us through a generative writing workshop from 7pm-8:30pm on February 9th, 2026 at 12Gates, located at 106 N 2nd St.

Doors open at 6:30pm and close promptly at 7pm.

Curated by Sanam Sheriff, THE POETS' STUDIO is a monthly gathering for local poets who are interested in writing, sharing, and connecting through poetry. This event is free and open to all who are interested in engaging more deeply with lyric and the written word.