In Volume Seven: Chapter Fourteen of the Program, we welcome Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born and based Poet, Author, Community Activist, and the 14th Poet Laureate for the City of Milwaukee, Shelly Conley. A seven-time member of Milwaukee’s National Poetry Slam Team, she serves as Program Director of My Sista’s KeepHer and is the author of Rewind: A Cathartic Autobiography.

In our conversation, we travel through Shelly’s creative history, beginning with journaling at nine years old, her early love of hip-hop, and eventually discovering poetry in middle school. We revisit the year she spent attending Dasha Kelly’s open mic at the old Mecca Nightclub before finally finding the courage to step on stage herself, and how that experience changed her relationship with poetry and taught her the power of sharing our words with others.

We discuss how Shelly has carried that lesson into her work today, from creating a space for emerging writers through The Writers Hive Poetry Open Mic to helping young women explore their emotions, experiences, and voices through My Sista’s KeepHer.

Shelly also opens up about her once-complicated relationship with her mother, the role writing played in their healing, and their decision to tell that story together through their book project, Writing It Together.

Finally, we discuss the journey that led Shelly to becoming Milwaukee’s 14th Poet Laureate, the surprise of learning she had been selected, and an incredible full-circle moment: years after finding the courage to share her poetry at an open mic created by Dasha Kelly, Shelly would eventually succeed her as Poet Laureate.

From a nine-year-old writing privately in a journal to helping others discover the power of their own words, Shelly’s story is one of finding your voice, having the courage to share it, and eventually creating space for others to find theirs.

Contact Shelly:
Instagram: @poeticworkinprogress Website: shellyconley.com

Recorded Spoken Word Performances Featured Include:

Aleah Bradshaw – Questions
Instagram: @nyfe

Lyrical Faith – Bilingual
Instagram: @lyricalfaithpoetry

Jahman Hill– Cash Me Outside
Instagram: @jahman_rondo Website: jahmanhill.com

Shelly Conley – 2am Free Write
Instagram: @poeticworkinprogress Website: shellyconley.com

Natasha Ria El-Scari – The Secret Society of Black Mothers
Instagram: @natasharia Website: natasharia.com

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In Volume Seven: Chapter Thirteen, we welcome Poet, Writer, Editor, Educator, and Author Maya Marshall. She is the Poetry Director and an editor at Haymarket Books, co-founder of underbelly, a journal dedicated to the art and practice of poetic revision, and a MacDowell and Cave Canem fellow. She is the author of All the Blood Involved in Love, winner of the 2025 Holmes National Poetry Prize.

In our conversation, we trace Maya’s creative journey back to a childhood where art, literature, politics, and public service were woven into her everyday life. She reflects on growing up around Austin, Texas's Black Arts Alliance, traveling throughout the state as her mother performed a one-woman play, writing her own “little poems” while waiting in the wings, and giving her first public poetry reading at an anti-Klan rally in Austin when she was seven years old.

We explore the experiences that transformed an early instinct for writing into an intentional study of the craft—from Writers in the Schools and afternoons spent reading poetry in bookstores to her lifelong fascination with books, music, galleries, museums, and language itself. Maya discusses the difference between loving poetry and learning how to write a good poem, why she doesnt romanticize inspiration, and the importance of practice, revision, and eventually learning when to trust a poem enough to let it go.

Our conversation also examines poetry as the constant Maya continued returning to while trying to imagine a practical life as a writer, and her belief that poetry may be the closest thing to faith she has. We discuss the balance between solitude and community throughout her life, reflecting on a remarkable personal practice she began at sixteen—writing herself a letter every birthday documenting what she is proud of and grateful for—and what those letters have revealed about confidence, ambition, and a deepening acceptance of self.

From the little girl surrounded by artists and books to the poet whose own work now sits on shelves alongside writers she once admired, this is a conversation about learning not simply how to write poetry, but how to build a life around it—and what it means to eventually help create that space for others.

Contact Maya:
Instagram: @maya.marshall.16 Website: mayamarshallpoetry.com

Recorded Spoken Word Performances Featured Include:

Ayanna Albertson – What That Mouth Do
Instagram: @untouchableyann

Shanelle Gabriel – Daddy's Girl
Instagram: @shanellegabriel Website: shanellegabriel.com

Christopher Diaz – Again
Instagram: @lightbulbchris Website: christopherdiazcreates.com

Leah V – 3am
Instagram: @leahvspeaks Website: leahvspeaks.com

Ebony Stewart – Single
Instagram: @gullyprincess Website: ebpoetry.com

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In Volume Seven: Chapter Twelve of the podcast, we welcome Hong Kong-born, Midland, Ontario-based poet and author Grace. Holding a double BA in English Literature and Psychology from the University of British Columbia, Grace is the author of The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak and her newest collection, Be Water, available now from Anvil Press.

Our conversation traces Grace's creative journey from an avid childhood reader who eagerly returned home from weekly library trips with stacks of novels, to someone who initially found poetry uninspiring and imposed upon her in high school. She reflects on how discovering contemporary poetry, becoming immersed in Vancouver's vibrant literary community, and finding an early champion in the partner who became her first editor transformed poetry from an academic exercise into a deeply personal means of understanding herself and the world around her.

Grace opens up about growing up in a family where emotions were rarely spoken aloud, explaining how poetry became the language through which she could process memories, identity, family history, queerness, culture, and belonging. We explore the surprising evolution of her debut collection, The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak, discussing how individual poems gradually revealed themselves to be part of a larger conversation, how publishing that first book validated her identity as a poet, and how writing it helped release her long-held fixation on the past.

We also discuss finding confidence as a performer within Vancouver's spoken word scene, learning to embrace joy and playfulness in the writing process, and the evolution that led to her newest collection, Be Water. Grace shares how the new book feels less like a return to old wounds and more like a continuation of healing, exploring relationships, identity, and self-understanding from a place of greater compassion and emotional clarity.

It's an honest and thoughtful conversation about creativity, healing, identity, and discovering that sometimes the language we're searching for is the one we learn to write ourselves.

Contact Grace:
Instagram: @thrillandgrace Website: grace-writes.com

Recorded Spoken Word Performances Featured Include:

Joel Francois – Liars
Instagram: @thedapperdaydreamer

Fanta Ballo – Broken Hearts
Instagram: @fantaratty

Crystal Valentine – Little Known Fact
Instagram: @crystalvalentine94 Website: iamcrystalvalentine.com

The Legendary Black Ice – Who Would I Be
Instagram: @thelegendaryblackice

The Legendary Black Ice – Bigger Than Me
Instagram: @thelegendaryblackice

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