Joseph Green is a spoken word artist, educator, and motivational speaker

with over 15 years’ experience in youth development. He co-founded poetryN.O.W., a nonprofit providing creative writing programming and curriculum for DC-area youth and schools. While serving as Split This Rock’s Director of Youth Programs for 3 years, he transferred poetryN.O.W’s work into Split This Rock’s care. Joseph has performed, hosted, and featured throughout the United States, including at the White House, Kennedy Center, and American Society of Addiction Medicine’s annual conference. He has qualified to compete at Poetry Slam Inc.’s National Poetry Slam five times and ranked 16th at the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam. In 2017, Joseph started LMSvoice to help people and socially conscious organizations discover and share the transformative power of story.

This poem is reprinted from Split This Rock’s Poem of the Week Series. Feel free to share it widely. Please include all of the information in this post, including this request and a link to the poem at Split This Rock’s website. Thanks! 

For more poems of provocation and witness, please visit The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database at www.splitthisrock.org

The Making of Busboys and Poets

A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets

We’re proud to announce A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets, the new memoir from our CEO and Founder, which reveals the vision, challenges, and triumphs behind opening Busboys and Poets. Packed with misadventures, unexpected triumphs, and insights on race, business and politics, Andy Shallal’s memoir takes us on a “How I Built … Continued

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For Langston Hughes on His 123 Birthday

Speech given on February 1, 2024 in Havana, Cuba In 1927 Langston Hughes walked into a Cuba amid an emerging community of artists, intellectuals, and radicals.  He saw a “sunrise in a new land [– a day – in his words]sic – full of brownskin surprises, and hitherto unknown contacts in a world of color.”  … Continued

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Palestine Week 2024

January 18, 2024 – January 25, 2024 In keeping with our ongoing mission of uplifting racial and cultural connections, Busboys and Poets is hosting Palestine Week (January 18 through January 25, 2024). This week-long series of events will offer a diverse range of programming featuring Palestinian food, music, dance, poetry, discussions, and other enriching events. … Continued

Busboys and Poets Book Interview: Mamta Jain Valderrama

Busboys and Poets Book Interview: Mamta Jain Valderrama

Busboys and Poets Books is excited to have social justice author, Mamta Jain Valderrama coming to Busboys 14th & V to discuss her debut novel, A Girl In Traffick, based on true stories of human organ trafficking. In advance of the upcoming event, bookstore supervisor Kenlynn Nelson interviewed Mamta about her writing and thoughts on … Continued

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State of the People at Busboys and Poets

We’re 30+ days into the longest federal government shutdown in history with no sure sign of when it’ll actually end (reopening for three weeks does not count, Mr. President.) The State of the Union address was scheduled to take place on January 29, 2019, but has never been given during a government shutdown. What should … Continued

CUBA Trip Flier

Trip to Cuba – Book Now!

Calling all artists, writers, poets, thinkers, & dreamers! Join the Busboys and Poets Travel tribe on a once in a lifetime cultural exchange trip to Cuba. Spend 6 nights and 7 days in Havana & Vardarero with the nation’s most prolific creatives. Join us as we lay a plaque in tribute to the influential friendship … Continued