Green: Nature Poems, a DC Poet Project reading

This is the third event in Day Eight’s 2026 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. A $250 open mic prize, selected by the featured poets, is awarded at the end of each reading.

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

Founded in 2017, 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 a judge awards a $250 cash prize to a winning open mic participant. Those winners are invited 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 and partnership with the Anacostia Coordinating Council.

ABOUT THE FEATURED POETS

Anne Becker is author of three books of poetry, Human Animal, The Good Body, and The Transmutation Notebooks: Poems in the Voices of Charles and Emma Darwin. She was Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, MD, for four years and then, Poet-in-Residence at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center. An editor of the Mid-Atlantic Review, she was recently commissioned by Carl Banner, director of Washington Musica Viva, to write the long poem “The Jamie Raskin Oratorio,” which was set to music by composer Noam Faingold and premiered September 2024 with Carl Banner on piano and Chris Royal on trumpet.

Malachi Byrd is the 2025 winner of the DC Poet Project and the author of the book Until We Gone (Day Eight, 2025.) The artist known as MalPractice is a poet, teacher, battle rapper, songwriter, and arts advocate from the District of Columbia. He is the former youth Poet Laureate of Washington, D.C. and a graduate of Princeton University. A full-time artist, he has taught in over 100 schools in the DMV.

Susan Bucci Mockler was writer-in-residence at Rocky Mountain National Park in the summer of 2025. Her poetry has appeared in the Mid-Atlantic Review, Maryland Literary Review, peachvelvet, Maximum Tilt, Pilgrimage Press, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, The Northern Virginia Review, Gargoyle, The Delmarva Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Lunch Ticket, and numerous others, as well as in several anthologies. Her full-length poetry collection, Covenant (With) was published by Kelsay books in 2022. She teaches writing at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

THE CULMINATING EVENT OF THE 2026 DC POET PROJECT: SUNDAY MAY 3, 2-3:30PM At THE ANACOSTIA LIBRARY

​​The 2026 DC Poet Project series will culminate in person at a special reading Sunday, May 3 at 2:00 pm, including the open mic winners as selected at the prior events. At the conclusion of the event, attendees will live vote to select one poet to receive a $1,000 book contract.

PAST WINNERS OF THE DC POET PROJECT

2025 DC Poet Project winner Malachi Byrd, author of

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

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