Our Story

On June 19th, 2020 Monique Ngozi Nri, who is currently a Poetry MFA student at Brooklyn College, wrote a statement to the Chair and Director of the Poetry MFA requesting a meeting to discuss the lack of BIPOC students and faculty in the program as well as the absence of BIPOC poets in the curriculum.

Several students in the program supported her statement, and The Black Lives Matter Poetry Alliance was formed. We subsequently met with the administration in order to discuss concrete ways to effect change. To date, a repository of articles addressing anti-racist pedagogy has been sent out to all English department faculty, and a discussion on racism in MFA programs was held on August 6th.

We are building this website to highlight our goals and achievements as we challenge systemic racism in MFA programs and fundraise to provide scholarships for BIPOC students to pursue a Poetry MFA at Brooklyn College by Fall of 2021. Other goals include, but are not limited to: increasing full-time BIPOC faculty in the program; inviting more BIPOC writers to speak on campus and participate in workshops; a commitment to the inclusion of BIPOC writers in our syllabi; and critically analyzing the “unmarked” in our own work as well as the work of others, to quote Professor Ben Lerner.