2025 DC Poet Project - Ancestors and Descendants

This is the fourth event in Day Eight’s 2025 DC Poet Project reading series and competition. Each event includes about thirty minutes of poetry by the featured poets, and equal time for reading by open mic participants, for the opportunity to win a $250 open mic prize, judged by the featured poets.

Anyone can perform in the open mic; Only DC residents are eligible to win the cash prize.

The DC Poet Project is a poetry series and open-to-all poetry competition culminating in publication of a new book of poetry by a DC author. Each event includes reading by featured poets and an open mic. And at each series event the featured poets select one open mic participant the winner, awarding a $250 cash prize and invite to compete in the culminating event to win a $1,000 book contract.

The 2025 DC Poet Project series is curated by Regie Cabico, and hosted by Aaron Holmes, and is produced by Day Eight through the support of individual donors and support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

ABOUT THE FEATURED POETS

Amuchechukwu Nwafor is the 2024 winner of the DC Poet Project, and the author of the book, Salt Water Roots. A writer, educator and teaching artist in the Washington, D.C metropolitan area, she is a first-generation born Black American whose poetry touches on the diaspora, mental health, and the female experience. Amuchechukwu has performed at Towson University, Pentagon City Fashion Mall, the Show Place Arena and many other places in the DMV. Her poems were recently published in the Maryland Bards Anthology and the Mid-Atlantic Review.

Pacyinz Lyfoung is a French-born and raised, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet, attorney and activist. She emerged as a poet among the Asian American Renaissance and the Hmong Literary Movement in MN. She has been published in the Gulf Review, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and others, and in anthologies including, Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans; To Sing Along The Way: MN Women Poets from Pre-Colonial Days to the Present; The Forgotten River: An Anacostia Swim Club member anthology; and, They Rise like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets.

Nicholas (Nico) Penaranda is a Full time Lecturer in First Year Writing and Technical Writing at Howard University. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing at American University in May 2022, and his Bachelor's degree in English with a focus in Creative Writing from James Madison University in 2020. As a graduate student, he earned honors in the study of Creative Writing. As an Undergraduate student, he earned honors Stanley Rhy Say Scholarship in 2019 and the Award for Excellence in the Study of African American Literature in 2020. He was a research intern in JMU's English department doing transcription work, and he has also worked as Writing Center tutor for almost five years at both JMU and AU.

THE CULMINATING EVENT OF THE 2025 DC POET PROJECT: SUNDAY MAY 4, 2-4:00PM @ THE ANACOSTIA LIBRARY

​​The 2025 Poet Project series will culminate in person at a special reading Sunday, May 4 at 2:00 pm, including the open mic winners as selected at the five prior events. At the conclusion of the event attendees will vote to select one poet to receive a $1,000 book contract.

PAST WINNERS OF THE DC POET PROJECT

2024 DC Poet Project winner Amuchechukwu Nwafor, author of

2023 DC Poet Project winner Brandon Douglas, author of

2022 DC Poet Project winner Dominic McDonald, author of

2021 DC Poet Project winner Jenn Koiter, author of

2019 DC Poet Project winner Kevin Wiggins, author of

2018 DC Poet Project winner John Johnson, author of

2017 DC Poet Project winner Susan Meehan, author of

Host or Publisher Day Eight