City of Richmond announces the next two poet laureates

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Mayor Danny Avula announced Maurice “Moeflowz” Brown and Rosa Castellano as Richmond's next poet laureates.

On Saturday, April 11, Avula announced in a press release that Brown and Castellano will be the next poet laureates in the city of Richmond. They will be the third, following Joanna Lee and Douglas Powell/Roscoe Burnems.

“My Mayoral Action Plan focuses on being ‘a city that tells its stories and tells the truth about its past,’” Avula said. “Storytelling is how we understand healing in this city and how we imagine new futures together. It’s the foundation of what drives our administration: the work of bringing communities together and doing the collective healing work our city and our society so deeply need. And the Poet Laureate program is vital to that work.”

The poet laureate program began in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on Richmond's arts communities. Since then, the program has invested in local artists in Richmond and brought poets to work in local governments.

This is the third time the city of Richmond has had a poet laureate program, and this application cycle brought together poets from across the area.

There was an initial selection committee made up of community partners and city staff, which included people from the Richmond Public Library and Richmond Public Schools. They assisted with the application process by reviewing and submitting recommendations to Avula, who decided the final selection.

"Mayor Danny Avula’s selection of both Dr. Brown and Ms. Castellano highlights the program’s goals of unifying Richmond’s diverse poetic traditions and expanding opportunities for residents to engage with poetry as readers, audience members, and even creators," the release stated. "Each poet steps into the Poet Laureate role with deep connections to Richmond and a long history of building community through poetry."

Brown first performed poetry in Richmond in the early 2000s at Tropical Soul while stationed at Fort Lee. Since then, he has become well-known in Richmond's slam poetry and spoken word scenes.

"The first time I saw Moe perform, I knew I was watching something special,” Avula said. “Moe’s a dynamic speaker who invites an audience in and challenges them at the same time. He’s also a true teaching artist—his experiences educating and mentoring youth sets him up to make an enormous impact as a Poet Laureate.”

He founded Ink & Barrel Inc., an organization focused on empowering people through poetry. Brown also serves as the associate director of The Writer's Den RVA and teaches math at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

In Brown's application, he proposed an intergenerational citywide poetry and storytelling initiative, which includes a leadership conference, organizational showcase and citywide workshop series, according to the release.

“Richmond has the talent, history, and energy to position itself as a leader in Virginia’s arts scene,” Brown said. “Its future depends on connection, on collaboration, shared resources, and intentional cross-pollination. I see my role as helping facilitate those connections so the community can grow stronger together.”

Castellano moved to Richmond in 2001 to earn a Master's in Fine Arts in poetry from VCU and returned permanently in 2018 with her family.

She is the co-founder of RVA Poetry Fest and is also the writing engagement coordinator at the Visual Arts Center and the literary arts director for Sundress Publications.

Castellano's work has been published in various publications and her debut poetry collection is titled 'All is the Telling.'

“As anyone who has spent time at Poetry Fest can tell you, Rosa is just a powerhouse organizer who turns vision into reality,” Avula said. “The range of voices and activities represented there is a testament to her dream of a city rich with creative expression. Her own beautiful writing is even more powerful because of the way she brings other writers and artists along with her.”

Her application proposed starting a Youth Poet Laureate program for Richmond to empower the area's youth voices, per the release.

“The future of poetry and quite possibly what’s next for all of us will likely involve some form of service, of caring for our neighbors and to do that, we need to see and know each other. Poetry is one powerful way that can happen,” Castellano said. “As Poet Laureate, I will continue working to support existing literary arts groups by creating infrastructure to make it easier for more people to find their literary homes.”

Avula announced the joint poet laureates during the Richmond Poetry Fest. Brown and Castellano will receive a $5,000 stipend annually through their service as well as an additional $2,000 annually to support their program.

For more information, visit the city of Richmond's website here.