Our Words Our City:
A DC SCORES Poetry Showcase
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater
1101 6th St SW, Washington, DC 20024
May 16th, 2023
Doors at 6:45 PM
Our Words Our City is the DMV region's premier youth poetry showcase. The event will feature original spoken-word performances from DC SCORES poet-athletes who participate in the Youth W.O.R.D. Initiative, an enhanced writing and professional development program for students passionate about poetry and performance. Award-winning author and former college soccer player Clint Smith will receive the inaugural Poet-Athlete Award at Our Words Our City, in recognition of his work to promote racial justice and equity. Smith will also give a reading from his new poetry collection Above Ground.
Featured Artist: Clint Smith
Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and a 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Nonfiction, and the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review, and elsewhere.
Thank You to Our Host Committee
Ben-James Brown - Wells Fargo • Ann Friedman - Planet Word •
David Grosso - Arent Fox • Andrew Howell - Monument Advocacy •
Arlene Selber • Andy Shallal - Busboys and Poets