Aja Monet

Aja Monet is a Caribbean-American poet and cultural worker originally from Brooklyn, NY. Aja Monet independently published her first chapbook of poetry, The Black Unicorn Sings and collaborated with poet Saul Williams on a poetry anthology of this generation’s social and political anthems entitled, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster). Co-founder of Smoke Signals Studio, Aja Monet currently lives in Little Haiti, Miami and dedicates her time merging arts & culture in community organizing with the Dream Defenders and Community Justice Project. She spearheads an arts & activism initiative, “Voices: Poetry for the People” that provides free poetry workshops for grassroots leaders & organizers in South Florida. As well she organizes artist delegations, cultural, and political exchanges with communities at home and abroad. Aja Monet was a featured speaker and delivered the title poem from her first full-length poetry book at the Women’s March on Washington, D.C. in 2017. Her first collection of poems is available on Haymarket Books entitled, my mother was a freedom fighter. In 2018, her book was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry. She is currently working on a new collection of poems entitled, Florida Water.