Red Emma’s

“We who do words are doing what we do,” says Nikki G. “Through the pen, you wielded like a torch, like a wand, like a blade when the world needed sharpening. You didn’t just write poems – you built rooms for us to walk into, to rest in, to rage in, to love in. I stepped into those rooms again and again, never leaving quite the same as I entered,” writes poet Fredrick Joseph, We Alive, Beloved, in a tribute to this highly revered poet. We end this festival season with creatives and poets who walk into that room, who shine their own light, who read their own poems where they will be seen.

Wifty Bangura is a multifaceted creative specializing in sound, blending hip-hop, neo-soul, and alternative music with classical vocal training and performance experience. She uses music as a tool for healing and self-liberation, inspiring listeners to embrace their true selves and resist anything that stifles self-love. Dominique Christina is an award-winning poet, author of Anarcha Speaks, curator, conceptual installation artist, and Arts Envoy to Cyprus. She believes words make worlds. Sylvia Jones’ first poetry collection, Television Fathers, was released in 2024. She is an editor at Black Lawrence Press and a reader for Ploughshares. She earned her M.F.A. from American University in Washington D.C. and lives and writes in Baltimore. Michael B. Tager is the author of Pop Culture Poetry: the Definitive Collection. Erica Dawson is a Black poet living with bipolar disorder and OCD in the Baltimore-DC area. Ailish Hopper is a poet who works in page, performance, and social forms. She’s the author of the chapbook, Bird in the Head, and the full-length collection, Dark~Sky Society. Tracy Dimond, Mistress of Ceremony is a 2016 Baker Artist Award finalist. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Emotion Industry and the Vice Chair of CityLit Project. In this final act of poetry, Nikki G reminds us, the human spirit will prevail. Her words bring extraordinary light to our current circumstances, “We will take what we have to make what we need.” May she Rest in Power. May we remember her name.