Day Eight’s 2025 DC Poet Project reading series will begin with an online reading Saturday, February 8th, 2025 from 7-8:30pm.
The overarching theme of the 2025 series is “holding to a vision” and each of the four reading series events has its own focus reflecting that theme. The opening event, Life Lessons, features poets who are teachers.
The 2025 series features 13 exceptional area poets in four reading events. Each event includes about 30 minutes of poetry by the featuring poets followed by equal time for reading by open mic participants. Priority in the open mic is given to DC residents. At the end of each event, the featured poets select one open mic participant the winner, to receive a $250 cash prize and invite to compete in the culminating reading series event to win a $1,000 book contract.
The 2025 DC Poet Project series is curated by Regie Cabico and hosted by Aaron Holmes and is made possible through individual donors to Day Eight and support from the DC Commission on The Arts and Humanities and partnership with the Anacostia Coordinating Council.
The 2025 DC Poet Project series schedule
Life Lessons: Saturday, February 8, 7-8:30pm on zoom – click to register. Featuring Maggie Rosen, Sean Felix, and Anne-Marie Maloney
Honoring Reuben Jackson and Kathi Wolfe: Saturday, March 1, 7-8:30pm on zoom – click to register. Featuring Gregory Luce, Joseph Ross, and Serena Agusto-Cox
Singing Words: Sunday, March 16, 2-3:30pm at the Anacostia Library – click to register. Featuring Brandon Douglas, Patience Rowe, and Dwayne Lawson-Brown
Ancestors and Descendants: Sunday, March 30th, 2-3:30pm at Anacostia Library – click to register. Featuring Amuchechukwu Nwafor, Pacyinz Lyfoung, and Nico Penaranda.
The Culminating Event: Sunday, May 4th, 2-3:30pm at Anacostia Library – registration link to come. Featuring the open mic winners as selected at the four prior events.
The 2025 Poet Project featured poets
Maggie Briand Rosen (she/her), writes about the intersection between truth and myth, history and family legacy. Awards and recognition for her work include: Winner of the Moving Words Competition, the Enoch Pratt/Little Patuxent Review Poetry Contest, and the Bethesda Urban Partnership Prize. Her poetry and hybrid work has been nominated twice for Best of the Net. A poetry chapbook, The Deliberate Speed of Ghosts, was published in 2016 by Red Bird Chapbooks. Her poems and hybrid works have been published in Marrow, Heron Tree, Harpy Hybrid, Waccamaw, Cider Press Review, and Barely South, among others. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Sean Felix (he/his/him) is a citizen poet from Washington DC. His first book Did You Even Know I Was Here? was released in 2019, and he’s read with The Inner Loop and Poetry on the Pike literary reading series. He has published poems in Bloodroot Lit Journal, Sunday Mornings at the River Fall Anthology, and Beyond the Veil’s Mental Health Poetry Anthology and the Haiku Society of America’s Mentorship Student Anthology. Sean is a haiku poet, who practices a meditative practice of creating haibun from haiku. Listen to his podcast recording for The Inner Loop Radio, Taking Back Time, on Soundcloud or iTunes.
Anne-Marie Maloney (she/her) is an experienced wellness advocate and educator with a diverse background in teaching, speaking, and writing. Passionate about connecting mind, body, and soul, she utilizes activities such as dance and strength conditioning to promote holistic well-being. A skilled writer and poet, Ann Marie has been featured in various publications and events. As a facilitator, she has designed impactful workshops for teens and launched the “About This Life” podcast, along with the “Becoming Enough” online community. With a Master’s in Curriculum & Instruction and National Board Certification, Ann Marie mentors both students and educators, fostering creativity and resilience through arts integration. Her extensive experience includes managing significant budgets for health campaigns, developing public information and educational programs, and securing grants for student enrichment. In 2014, she was honored as Teacher of the Year in her district. Ann Marie is dedicated to promoting healing through poetry, supporting individuals in overcoming life challenges, and helping them find their voice.
Gregory Luce, (he/him) editor and editorial board chair of the Mid-Atlantic Review, is the author of the chapbooks Signs of Small Grace and Drinking Weather, and the collection Memory and Desire. His poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals, and in the anthologies Living in Storms (Eastern Washington University Press) and Bigger Than They Appear (Accents Publishing). He was the 2014 winner of the Larry Neal Writers Award, awarded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Joseph Ross (he/him) is the author of five books of poetry: Crushed & Crowned (2023), Raising King, Ache, Gospel of Dust, and Meeting Bone Man. His poems appear in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, Xavier Review, Poet Lore, The Langston Hughes Review, and The Los Angeles Times. He teaches English and Creative Writing and writes regularly at JosephRoss.net.
Serena M. Agusto-Cox, (she/her) an editor of the Mid-Atlantic Review, is a Suffolk University graduate who writes more vigorously than she did in her college poetry seminars. Her day job continues to feed the starving artist, and her poems can be read in Beginnings Magazine, LYNX, Muse Apprentice Guild, The Harrow, Poems Niederngasse, Avocet, Pedestal Magazine, and Mothers Always Write, among others. An essay also appears in H.L. Hix’s Made Priceless and at Modern Creative Life, as does a Q&A on book marketing through blogs in Midge Raymond’s Everyday Book Marketing. She also runs the book review blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, and is the founder of Poetic Book Tours.
Brandon Douglas (he/him) is the 2023 winner of the DC Poet Project and the author of the book, Dipped in Cerulean. Brandon Douglas is a professional poet and arts educator who has worked in schools, detention centers, and community centers. As a youth in DC he was a participant in one of DC’s youth slam teams. Douglas began writing raps in middle school and later melded poetry and hip hop into spoken word compositions. Father of two young girls, he is committed to the District of Columbia, and the power of community.
Patience Rowe is a creator, actress, vocalist, certified Reiki practitioner and writer native to Washington, D.C; a creative with a passion for the spoken word and sound healing. Patience is a heavy praying woman who has been dreaming for years; poet, vocalist, and creative writer. She has performed on stages alongside tenured artists and activists, such as Angela Davis, Nikki Giovanni, Haki Madhabuti, C.C Carter and Avery R. Young. Patience finds most of her inspiration in community artists. If you listen closely you may find her heart between your ears.
Dwayne Lawson-Brown (they/them), aka the Crochet Kingpin, is an editor of the Mid-Atlantic Review and co-host of Spit Dat, the longest running open mic in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., they have performed and hosted at The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theater, Keegan Theater, The Strathmore, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and others. In addition to varying poetic accomplishments, Dwayne is a Helen Hayes nominated playwright, competitive karaoke champion, and CEO of Crochet Kingpin Designs. He is co-author with Rebecca Bishophall of the book, Breaking the Blank, published by Day Eight in 2023.
Amuchechukwu Nwafor is the 2024 winner of the DC Poet Project and the author of the book, Salt Water Roots. A writer, educator and teaching artist in the Washington, D.C metropolitan area, she is a first-generation born Black American whose poetry touches on the diaspora, mental health, and the female experience. Amuchechukwu has performed at Towson University, Pentagon City Fashion Mall, the Show Place Arena and many other places in the DMV. Her poems were recently published in the Maryland Bards Anthology and the Mid-Atlantic Review.
Pacyinz Lyfoung (she/her) is a French-born and raised, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet, attorney and activist. She emerged as a poet among the Asian American Renaissance and the Hmong Literary Movement in MN. She has been published in the Gulf Review, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and others, and in anthologies including, Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans; To Sing Along The Way: MN Women Poets from Pre-Colonial Days to the Present; The Forgotten River: An Anacostia Swim Club member anthology; and, They Rise like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets.
Nicholas (Nico) Penaranda is a Full time Lecturer in First Year Writing and Technical Writing at Howard University. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing at American University in May 2022, and his Bachelor’s degree in English with a focus in Creative Writing from James Madison University in 2020. As a graduate student, he earned honors in the study of Creative Writing. As an Undergraduate student, he earned honors Stanley Rhy Say Scholarship in 2019 and the Award for Excellence in the Study of African American Literature in 2020. He was a research intern in JMU’s English department doing transcription work, and he has also worked as Writing Center tutor for almost five years at both JMU and AU.
About the 2025 Poet Project Series Curator
Regie Cabico is a Filipino American poet and spoken word theater artist. Cabico’s first book of poetry, A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex and Other Hyperboles, Mysteries, Parables and Fantasias, was published by Day Eight in 2023. He edited Super Stoked: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from the Capturing Fire Slam & Summit (Capturing Fire Press, 2018),and is the coeditor of Flicker & Spark: A Contemporary Anthology of Queer Poetry and Spoken Word (Lowbrow Press, 2013), which was nominated for a 2014 Lambda Literary Award. Cabico’s work appears in more than thirty anthologies, including The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks, 2003); Chorus & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999); and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (Henry Holt and Company, 1994), edited by Miguel Algarín and Bob Holman. In 1993 he was the first Asian American poet to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam, and later won top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. He has taught with Kennedy Center Arts Education, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.