Skip to Main Content

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate
  • Subscribe
  • Sign In
  • Subscribe
  • Sign In
  • Forum
  • Archive
Sections
  • Arts in Society
  • Class & Inequality
  • Gender & Sexuality
  • Law
  • Philosophy
  • Politics
  • Race
  • Science
  • About
    • Mission
    • Masthead
    • BR at 50
  • Engage
    • Events
    • Newsletter
    • Store
    • Reading Lists
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Membership
  • Contact
    • Submissions
    • Jobs
    • Contact Us
  • Latest
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Store
  • Events
  • 50 Years of BR
  • About
Current Issue
Browse All Issues
Arts in Society

Three poems by Porsha Olayiwola

a slave ship hauls / bodies as cargo and / both the surface and ocean floor / rifts. even the clouds break / open in sobs.

  • Porsha Olayiwola
Poem
link print email
July 21, 2022

Porsha Olayiwola is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival. Olayiwola is Brown University’s 2019 Heimark Artist-in-Residence as well as the 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She is a 2020 poet laureate fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Olayiwola earned her MFA in poetry from Emerson College and is the author of i shimmer sometimes, too. Olayiwola is the current poet laureate for the city of Boston. Her work can be found in or forthcoming from with TriQuarterly Magazine, Black Warrior Review, the Boston Globe, Essence, Redivider, the Academy of American Poets, Netflix, Wildness Press, the Museum of Fine Arts, and elsewhere.

Donate to support work like this:

Related Articles

The Reality Drive

A short story.

  • Emmett Rensin

Art Thieves

Watching Kelly Reichardt’s films in the age of Anthropic.

  • Jacob Rubin

The Machines Get in the Way

The work of art—and the work of making art—in an age increasingly hostile to it.

  • Luke Dunne
trending_flat
Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization

  • X
  • Bluesky
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • About
    • Mission & History
    • Archive
    • 50 Years of BR
    • Masthead
    • Annual Reports
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Membership
  • Engage
    • Events
    • Newsletter
    • Substack
    • Store
    • Reading Lists
  • Contact
    • Submissions
    • Jobs
    • Contact Us

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate

Become a Member

Subscribe

© 2026 All Rights Reserved

  • Privacy Policy
Built by Metropolis

Get BR and Dissent for 30% off

For a limited time, get a year of both BR and Dissent in print for just $60, or become a digital subscriber to both for just $35.

Just add a BR membership to your cart and use code DISSENT60 to save on print or DISSENT35 for digital.

Subscribe now