Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs
Houston Poet Laureate
The Houston Poet Laureate program celebrates Houston’s rich culture and diversity through the work of a poet who serves as the City’s ambassador for the literary arts. During a two-year appointment, the poet laureate, selected by the Mayor, also completes a community outreach project. The Poet Laureate receives an honorarium. The program is co-managed with the Houston Public Library.
POET LAUREATE 2023 – 2025:
ARIS KIAN BROWN
Aris Kian is a Houston enthusiast and student of abolitionists. Her poems are published with Button Poetry, West Branch, Obsidian Lit, The West Review, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 Pushcart nominee, 2020 Best of the Net finalist, a 2021 Crystal Wilkinson Creative Writing Prize finalist, and a 2022 New Voices Contest finalist with Frontier Poetry. Kian is the 2022 recipient of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing for Students with Service to the Houston Literary Community and ranks #2 in the 2023 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam. As an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow, she received her MFA from the University of Houston and currently serves as the Narrative Change & Media Manager at Houston in Action. She engages with the socio-mythological landscape of our metropolitan city in her poems and hates taking 610 West Loop.
For her community outreach project, “Space for Us: Afrofuturism and the Poetic Imagination”, she will conduct a series of interviews with community members across Houston asking them questions like, “What do you hope Houston looks like tomorrow?” and then “stitch” a poem utilizing those answers, allowing everyone to see the poetry that is “already embedded in everyday people.” Brown will also translate the finished poem into the top spoken languages in the city.
POET LAUREATE EMERITUS
- Emanuelee "Outspoken" Bean -- 2021-2023, Space City Mixtape, a mixture of spoken word narratives of Houston residents set to music by Russel Gus
- Leslie Contreras Schwartz -- 2019-2021, Bayou City Broadsides, artistic displays of lines from poems of everyday Houstonians
- Deborah "D.E.E.P." Mouton -- 2017-2019, Emerge, 11 community performance poetry videos highlighting various Houston neighborhoods
- Dr. Robin Davidson -- 2015-2017, Houston's Favorite Poems, a published anthology of residents' favorite poetry
- Gwen Zepeda, 2015-2017, Creation of the Houston Poet Laureate's social media platforms
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Contact MOCA
Cultural Affairs OfficeCity Hall / 901 Bagby, First Floor
Houston, TX 77002
P: 832.393.1099
cultural.affairs@houstontx.gov
