Yasmine Bolden (they/them) is a 2023 Best of the Net Black American poet, part-time creative writing coach, and racial justice advocate dedicated to nurturing the voices of and creating accessibility for young BIPOC involved in the arts. A Juneteenth Resiliency Awardee, Southern Esesu Endeavor Inaugural Audre Lorde Fellow, Best New Poets nominee, and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, they're also the curator of the Black Youth Create online creative exhibit as well as a National Museum of African American History and Culture YHI alumna and co-founder of Johns Hopkins University's premier poetry & performance society, Bluejays & Poets. They're a student director at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Concern and attend Johns Hopkins University as a Writing Seminars and Africana Studies double major. There, they're a Writers In Baltimore Schools Teaching Fellow and a reader for the Hopkins Review.

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They perform in and write micro-productions for DMV area theatre and their writing and thoughts have been recognized by or appeared in Teen Vogue, the Scholastic Writing Awards, National Beta Club Poetry Competition, the Feminist Center for Creative Work, and the I, Too, Am the Dream Contest. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in

the Sims Library of Poetry, Perhappened, Love Letters: To the Mothers and Fathers of the African Diaspora anthology, Perhappened Magazine, Footwork Journal, Salima Magazine, and Alocasia, Good for Youth (formerly Zenerations), The Lickety Split among others, and been commissioned by Writopia Lab.

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At heart, they're still the voracious reader who talked their way into getting more than the five book limit from their elementary school library. You can find out more about them in the about tab, on Twitter @blkpunningpoet, and on Instagram @blackpunningpoet. 

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