Poetry Matters
Virginia Poet Laureates
Featuring four local Virginia poet laureates, Holly Karapetkova, Courtney LeBlanc, Zeina Azzam, and Kim B Miller, this panel showcased four writers reading their work and discussing their roles as artists, teachers, and advocates for poetry.
About Holly Karapetkova
Holly Karapetkova, Poet Laureate of Arlngton County is the author of two books of poetry, Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the 2010 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Award, and Towline, winner of the 2016 Vern Rutsala Poetry Contest from Cloudbank Books. Her current manuscript projects, Still Life With White and Planter’s Wife grapple with the deep wounds left by our history of racism, slavery, and environmental destruction. She is also the author of over 20 books for children.
Website: karapetkova.com
Twitter: @hollykarapetkov
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/holly-karapetkova-432b6724
About Zeina Azzam
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. She is the Poet Laureate of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, for 2022-2025. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was released in 2021 by The Poetry Box. Her poems appear in journals, webzines, and anthologies including Pleiades, Mizna, Gyroscope, Cutleaf Journal, National Academy of Poets Poem-a-Day, Split this Rock, Bettering American Poetry, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Virginia, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, Making Levantine Cuisine: Modern Foodways of the Eastern Mediterranean, and Gaza Unsilenced. Her commissioned poem, “You Birth the Seeds,” was recently rendered as a four-part choral work by the renowned composer Melissa Dunphy. Zeina’s works can also be found in art gallery catalogues and on public buses in the cities of Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia.
Website: zeinaazzam.com
Twitter: @zeina3azzam
About Courtney Leblanc
Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, Write Bloody, 2023), Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) and Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). She is a Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow (2022) and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning.
Website: wordperv.com
Twitter: @wordperv
Instagram: @wordperv79
About Kim B Miller
Prince William County, Virginia Poet Laureate Emerita Kim B Miller is the First African American Poet Laureate for PWC, Manassas & Manassas Park, VA. Kim is also a facilitator and a speaker. She creates and develops her own training material. Her interactive workshops are fun and informative. She facilitated a workshop for University of California, Berkeley and Google. Voice of America-VOA did a documentary on Kim. Voice of America is the largest and oldest US funded international broadcaster. Kim is the 2023, 2022 & 2021 DMV Renaissance Awards Haikuist of the Year. She is the author of several books.
Website: kimbmiller.com
YouTube: @
Instagram: @pwcpoetlaureate2020
