2025 Poetry Festival Archive
Black & Brown Poetry Festival: Voices in Motion
April 24–26, 2025
Pilsen Arts & Community House, First Sip Café, and Film Row Theater
Chicago, Illinois
Presented by Black & Brown Femme Films
The Black & Brown Poetry Festival brought three days of poetry, performance, and film across Chicago, placing Black and Brown femme poets at the center of every room.
Built around the theme An Ode to the Eye of the Poet, Voices in Motion treated poetry as something alive—spoken, seen, filmed, remembered, and shared. The festival moved across neighborhoods, disciplines, and forms while creating space for art, community, truth, and collective expression.
Poetry Across Chicago
Three Days. Three Spaces. One Living Festival.
Each day offered a different way to experience poetry: a multimedia exploration of Latin hip hop, an intimate open mic filled with lived experience, and a poetry film program that carried the written and spoken word onto the screen.
Day One · April 24
Latin Hip Hop as a New Poetry
Catalina Maria Johnson opened the festival with a lively multimedia presentation exploring Latin hip hop as poetry, cultural memory, protest, and creative resistance.
Pilsen Arts & Community House
Day Two · April 25
Femme Open Mic
A packed open mic brought Black and Brown femme poets together to share work shaped by truth, healing, joy, and lived experience. The room became an intimate community of poets and listeners.
First Sip Café
Day Three · April 26
Poetry Film Festival
The closing program brought poetry to the screen through films inspired by sisterhood, imagination, resistance, and femme brilliance.
Film Row Theater, Columbia College Chicago
An Ode to the Eye of the Poet
Black and Brown Femme Poets at Center Stage
Voices in Motion was a declaration that Black and Brown femme poets did not have to remain at the edges of literary and cultural spaces. Their voices, visions, and experiences shaped the festival from beginning to end.
From spoken word to moving image—and from rhythm to resistance—the festival honored poets as artists, witnesses, storytellers, and makers of culture.
Festival Support
The festival was made possible through support from The Puffin Foundation, Illinois Humanities, and Columbia College Chicago.
Sponsored by Black Girl Vitamins.
Event Gallery
Voices in Motion
Scenes from three days of poetry, performance, film, and community across Chicago.
Festival Record