Danielle Legros Georges is a Haitian-born American poet, essayist and academic. She is a professor of creative writing and director of the Lesley University MFA Program in Creative Writing. Her areas of focus include contemporary American poetry, African-American poetry, Caribbean literature and studies, literary translation, and the arts in education.
Biography
Danielle Legros Georges was born in Gonaïves, Haiti. Her family left the country as political exiles and moved to Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before settling in Boston, Massachusetts. After graduating from Emerson College with a bachelor's degree in Communication Studies, she became part of the Dark Room Collective of Black writers, and went on to earn a master's of fine arts degree in English and creative writing from New York University. Her poetry has appeared in many literary journals – including Agni, The Boston Globe, Transition, World Literature Today, SpoKe, SX Salon, The Caribbean Writer, Callaloo, Ibbetson Street, Salamander, Poiesis, Black Renaissance Noire, MaComère, and The American Poetry Review – and she has been widely anthologised, including in New Daughters of Africa. Her debut book of poems, Maroon, was published in 2001 by Northwestern University Press. Her second collection, The Dear Remote Nearness of You, won the New England Poetry Club's Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize. In 2014 she was chosen as Boston's poet laureate, the second person to hold the position since the first appointee, Sam Cornish, in 2008. In this ceremonial role she was tasked with raising the status of poetry in the everyday consciousness of Bostonians, acting as an advocate for poetry, language and the arts, and creating a unique artistic legacy through public readings and civic events. As laureate, she established visiting hours for Bostonians interested in discussions of poetry in branches of the Boston Public Library; created a senior writing workshop for residents of the Mount Pleasant Home and elders of the area community; visited area schools; wrote occasional poems for civic events including the Mayor's State of the City addresses of 2015 and 2016, and the re-opening of the Boston Public Library's Central Branch; and collaborated with poets and poetry organizations in public art projects. As the city laureate, Legros Georges collaborated with Boston-area museums, libraries, artists and students; and represented Boston internationally at literary festivals. In 2016, she co-founded, with Joseph Bergin, Larry Lindner and Susan Wilson, the School Street Sessions, whose advisory committee organizes and presents monthly lectures on history and literature free to the public at Boston’s historic Omni Parker House.
Awards
Awards and accolades include
2017 Champion of Artists Award, Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition
2017 1804 List of Haitian-American Changemakers in the United States,
