15 Poems Selected To Be Displayed in City Hall

Along with its rich literary history, Boston is also home to many talented contemporary writers. In honor of the diverse and creative village we call Boston, each year MOAC displays selected poems on the walls of City Hall, as well as makes them available online. Poets who live and/or work in Boston are invited to send in work that embraces the city's creativity, innovation, and vibrant cultural landscape.

The theme for this year, selected by Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola, will be resistance.

Porsha's Prompt

Send us poems of resistance. Send poems of resistance and resilience in any fashion. Poems that explore the resilience of self or that of a people. Poems that resist traditional form, grammar or language rules. Poems that explore a time when you resisted a norm, a trend, an authority figure (for good measure). Send in poems in response to a moment of resistance, a movement of resistance.The poem can explore the societal, familial, natural or personal. It can be about a dinner dish, an outfit choice, a lover or systemic oppression. Anything at all.

Let us witness perseverance. Let us read your movement.