It’s easy enough to watch comedians’ stand-up sets on Instagram Reels, and musicians upload concert clips on TikTok. But that can’t replace the connection between live performers and audiences.
That communal energy is what draws people to the Newark-based Dodge Poetry Festival. Running October 15 to 17, the festival brings contemporary poets and spoken-word artists together with audiences ready to listen—and respond. In a culture where we consume so much performance through a screen, gathering to hear someone speak with purpose offers something a saved clip can’t quite hold.
Scott Pleasants, Poet Laureate of Teaneck, New Jersey, knows what happens when a poem meets a room ready to receive it.
“You would be amazed at the energy that comes from the live performers and the reciprocated energy by the in-person audience members,” he told EBONY. “Being able to see and feel the expressions that are generated by words, body movements, and genuine intent is irreplaceable.”
His invitation is simple: “push those phones and computers aside for a few moments and absorb a live poetry reading or spoken word performance.”
With rising voices and established artists on the lineup, the festival offers a chance to hear whose stories move us live and in person. Here are 10 artists that will help bring words to life at the festival.
Aja Monet
Aja Monet, a 2024 EBONY Power 100 Honoree, has found her own rhythm through poetry albums and audio plays that blend advocacy and art. Monet has carved out her niche through avant-garde explorations of Blackness in America and across the diaspora, and she’s a commanding presence on spoken-word projects like the Grammy-nominated When the Poems Do What They Do. The artist brings a melodic meditation that feels like a cathartic conversation about topics that dredge up feelings of anguish and hurt in the community.
Margie “Mia X” Johnson
Appointed Newark’s first Poet Laureate in 2025, Margie “Mia X” Johnson’s work touches on her love for the city’s history and her vision for its future. Whether her words are printed and bound, like her 2018 book Norky: Love. Light. Life., or expressed through live performance, the artist embodies the sacredness of Black community and culture. Her mission extends to her work as an educator, using her calling as a poet to advocate for literacy.
Scott Pleasants
While Pleasants’ appointment as the first Poet Laureate of Teaneck, New Jersey, marked a cornerstone moment in the township’s 130-year history, his brilliant work had already made him a rising star in the poetry scene. His poetry has sparked community conversations, including his aptly titled poem Listen to a Poet. Beyond poetry, Pleasants has translated his ability to create profound messages to storytelling in all forms, including producing a play, showing that he has no plans to stop creating.
Talena Lachelle Queen
Talena Lachelle Queen is a voice of clarity who calls for action and reflection, using her role as Paterson, New Jersey’s first Poet Laureate to drive change. Queen walks the line between sensitivity and truth, with renowned works like 2014’s How Do I Tell Them, exploring the anguish that reverberates through the Black community after violence. Beyond writing, Queen uses creation as an outlet for healing, establishing the Paterson Poetry Festival in 2018 to continue fostering community.
Danez Smith
Conversations about contemporary poetry will mention Danez Smith a few times, and for good reason—the poet holds up a mirror to America, boldly expressing both the good and the ugly. Their sobering collection Don’t Call Us Dead, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award, is a gut-wrenching reflection on the deadliness of racism and social stigma. Alongside their published work, the artist continues to shake up the poetry circuit as a co-founder of the Dark Noise Collective of poets.
Elizabeth Acevedo
Elizabeth Acevedo found a spot on bookshelves nationwide with her National Book Award-winning novel The Poet X, written in verse, but she hasn’t stopped moving the needle. The author explores how Black and Brown women make sense of their place in a world not built to accommodate them, reflections that helped her earn the title of Young People’s Poet Laureate in 2022.
Antoinette Ellis-Williams
The broader cultural picture of Black womanhood permeates Antoinette Ellis-Williams’ work as an academic and artist. The Kean University professor candidly explores Black women at every stage of life, from the trials of girlhood to motherhood and aging. Ellis-Williams’ work honestly explores Black womanhood through its hardships and joyous moments, including her 2013 collection, Black Gardenias and joins a long legacy of Black feminist thinkers and poets who have reshaped conversations about femininity and sacrifice.
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Marc Bamuthi Joseph stretches the bounds of where poetry lives in art, bringing his ideas to the stage as a playwright, dancer, and actor. The spoken-word artist champions performance as a way to investigate and reckon with essential questions about Black identity, culminating in a collaboration with Ta-Nehisi Coates on an adaptation of Between the World and Me. From creating operas like “Watch Night” to jazz-infused spoken word like “You Have the Rite,” Joseph brings new meaning to the phrase poetic justice.
Anyrah Shavéh
Anyrah Shavéh has her finger on the pulse, translating today’s issues into spoken word that jolts audiences into action. The poet has taken her contemporary style to the stages in NYC and beyond, asking the Black community to do some soul-searching on gun violence and seeking approval by living false lives online in her piece “If We Must Die Young.” Her written word is just as powerful, with her poetry being published in anthologies like Still I Rise: Voices of Women from Around the World.
Jive Poetic
Jive Poetic has taken on the difficult business of not only creating art but also building systems that support innovative thinkers like him for generations to follow. The educator founded the Insurgent Poets Society to establish permanent platforms that welcome Black and Brown poets as valuable artists and dismantle the conditions that exploit their voices. Jive Poetic himself has used his voice in thought-provoking poems about existing in America as a Black man, including 2020’s Assume the Position.
The Dodge Poetry Festival takes place October 15-17, 2026, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey.