Aja Monet

Artist, Performer, Writer/Editor

Aja Monet is an internationally established Caribbean-American poet. The youngest individual to win the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café Grand Slam title, she is recognized for combining her spellbound voice and powerful imagery on stage. Aja Monet was a featured speaker at the Women’s March on Washington DC in 2017 where she read the title poem of her latest book, My Mother Was A Freedom Fighter (Haymarket Books). In 2018, her book was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry. From East New York, Brooklyn to the Olive groves of Palestine, her poems tell the story of daughterhood and women who work to change the world fighting racism, sexism, displacement, and erasure. Monet’s other collections include Inner-City Chants & Cyborg Cyphers, and The Black Unicorn Sings. In addition, she collaborated with poet/musician Saul Williams on the anthology, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape. She currently lives in Little Haiti, Miami where she is co-founder of Smoke Signals Studio and dedicates her time to merging arts & culture with community organizing through her work with the Dream Defenders and the Community Justice Project.

poetry, art, justice, and love.

If you want to see how ugly the world is, place something beautiful in it.

black arts movement, jazz, poetry, women of color writers

Art as Organizing

Cooking and Collages