Poetry In Fairfax
In partnership with Fairfax County, ArtsFairfax raises the visibility of poetry through the designation of a Fairfax County Poet Laureate. Through this designation, ArtsFairfax seeks to celebrate and support a poet who can engage new audiences, create new opportunities for poetry to be shared, and encourage the creation of poetry and other literary works.
The Poet Laureate program recognizes a professional poet’s achievements and their demonstrated history of accomplishments; promotes a professional poet’s continued pursuit of creative work; and creates opportunities for connection between the Poet Laureate and Fairfax County communities. The Fairfax County Poet Laureate is a high honor that highlights the importance of poetry and literary arts in Fairfax County.
Danielle Badra, Fairfax Poet Laureate 2022-2024
“It is an absolute honor to be named Fairfax Poet Laureate. During my time as poet laureate, I plan to not only encourage residents to engage in reading, listening to, and writing poetry, but to also reflect on the environment around us. I am a passionate parks goer and outdoors enthusiast, and I derive a great deal of my poetic inspiration from nature. It is my hope to impart this same inspiration to the people of Fairfax County. Beyond just basking in the beauty of the parks, I hope that getting people outdoors and meditating on nature will motivate park-goers to also be responsible environmental stewards who will advocate for the plot of earth they occupy and keep it clean for future generations to enjoy.”
The Fairfax Poet Laureate is available for weekend visits to libraries, community events, readings, workshops, conferences, and more. Requests must be made at least one month in advance through this portal.
The 2022-2024 Fairfax Poet Laureate Danielle Badra received her BA in Creative Writing from Kalamazoo College and her MFA in Poetry from George Mason University. While there, she was the poetry editor of So To Speak, a feminist literary and arts journal, and an intern for Split This Rock. Her manuscript, Like We Still Speak, was selected by Fady Joudah and Hayan Charara as the winner of the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and published through the University of Arkansas Press. It was named a semi-finalist for the Khayrallah Prize and listed in Entropy’s “Best of 2020-2021: Poetry Books & Poetry Collections.”
Dialogue with the Dead (Finishing Line Press, 2015) is Danielle’s first chapbook, a collection of contrapuntal poems in dialogue with her deceased sister. Her poems have appeared in Mizna, Cincinnati Review, The Maynard, Outlook Springs, 45th Parallel, The California Journal of Poetics, Duende, The Greensboro Review, Bad Pony, Rabbit Catastrophe Press, Split This Rock, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere.
In addition to teaching undergraduate composition, literature, and poetry at George Mason University, she has led writing workshops at The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Split This Rock Poetry Festival, OutWrite DC, and in high schools. She has been a featured reader for Split This Rock’s “Sunday Kind of Love” series, a judge for Brave New Voices in DC, and a participant in Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a festival commemorating the 2007 bombing of a historic book market in Baghdad, Iraq.
Danielle is engaging the Fairfax community through readings and workshops in Fairfax County. Her community service project will focus on poetry in Fairfax County Parks. “Through poetry workshops, readings, and activities in the Parks I want to illuminate how language and our natural environment can be a source of comfort and creativity.”
Fairfax Poet Laureate Projects in the Community
About ArtsFairfax National Poetry Month
(County Magazine, Channel 16, May 2022)
Danielle Badra Shares about Poetry in the Parks
(County Magazine, Channel 16, April 2023)
Nicole Tong Residency at the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center
(County Magazine, Channel 16, June 2022)
