Poets

By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, Button Poetry hopes to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

Robert Wood Lynn

Robert Wood Lynn is the author of How to Maintain Eye Contact (Button Poetry 2023), runner-up in the 2020 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Mothman Apologia (Yale University Press 2022), selected by Rae Armantrout as the winner of… MORE

How to Maintain Eye Contact

Siaara Freeman

Siaara Freeman is from Cleveland Ohio, where she is the current Lake Erie Siren & a teaching artist for Center For Arts Inspired Learning and The Sisterhood Project in conjunction with the Anisfieldwolf Foundation. She is a 2021… MORE

Urbanshee

Button University: Siaara Freeman Workshop

Blythe Baird

At only 25 years old, Blythe Baird is already one of the most recognizable and acclaimed names in spoken word poetry. Originally from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, the viral writer has garnered international recognition for her stunning… MORE

Sweet, Young, & Worried

If My Body Could Speak

Darius Simpson

Darius Simpson is a writer, educator, performer, and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry belongs to and with the masses. He aims to inspire those chills that make… MORE

Never Catch Me

Steven Willis

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, storyteller Steven Antoine Willis uses his poetic and theatrical background to embark on the daunting task of creatively articulating African American culture. With art heavily influenced by urban life and religion, Steven… MORE

A Peculiar People

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre is a poet, educator, and activist based in Minneapolis, MN. His work explores the relationships between identity, power, and resistance, and he’s performed everywhere from the United Nations, to music festivals like Eaux Claires… MORE

NOT A LOT OF REASONS TO SING, BUT ENOUGH

A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry

Ebony Stewart

Ebony Stewart is an award-winning international touring poet and performance artist. Her work speaks to the black experience, with emphasis on gender, sexuality, womanhood, and race, with the hopes to be relatable, remove shame, heal minds, encourage dialogue,… MORE

BloodFresh

Home.Girl.Hood.

Rachel Wiley

Rachel Wiley is a queer, biracial poet and performer from Columbus, Ohio. She is a fellow and faculty member of the Pink Door Writing Retreat held annually for women and nonbinary writers of color in upstate New York…. MORE

Revenge Body

Nothing Is Okay

Andrea Gibson

Biography ANDREA GIBSON (they/them/theirs) is a queer author of five full-length collections of poetry, including Lord of the Butterflies (Button Poetry 2018) which sold over 20,000 copies worldwide. Winner of The Independent Publishers Award in 2019, Andrea is… MORE

You Better Be Lightning

Lord of the Butterflies

Patrick Roche

Patrick Roche is an award-winning poet, mental health advocate, and Carly Rae Jepsen enthusiast from New Jersey. Videos of Patrick’s work have amassed 9 million views on YouTube, making him one of the most popular spoken word poets…. MORE

A Socially Acceptable Breakdown

Button University: Patrick Roche Workshop