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Palestine Week 2024

January 18, 2024 – January 25, 2024 In keeping with our ongoing mission of uplifting racial and cultural connections, Busboys and Poets is hosting Palestine Week (January 18 through January 25, 2024). This week-long series of events will offer a diverse range of programming featuring Palestinian food, music, dance, poetry, discussions, and other enriching events. … Continued

The Making of Busboys and Poets

A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets

We’re proud to announce A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets, the new memoir from our CEO and Founder, which reveals the vision, challenges, and triumphs behind opening Busboys and Poets. Packed with misadventures, unexpected triumphs, and insights on race, business and politics, Andy Shallal’s memoir takes us on a “How I Built … Continued

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For Langston Hughes on His 123 Birthday

Speech given on February 1, 2024 in Havana, Cuba In 1927 Langston Hughes walked into a Cuba amid an emerging community of artists, intellectuals, and radicals.  He saw a “sunrise in a new land [– a day – in his words]sic – full of brownskin surprises, and hitherto unknown contacts in a world of color.”  … Continued

Busboys and Poets Books Interview: E. Ethelbert Miller

Busboys and Poets Books Interview: E. Ethelbert Miller

February saw the release of If God Invented Baseball, the latest collection of poetry from DC legend and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller. A devoted fan of the Washington Nationals, Ethelbert celebrates in the book the magic of baseball and its lessons for life.  In advance of the poet’s upcoming event at Busboys and Poets … Continued

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Split This Rock Poem of the Week: Monica Rico

The Universe, According to Rufino Tamayo  Past the breath that only stars have, I find myself an open hand of night with pupils that eclipse the moon. The blackness underneath my feet, not above where the sky is filled with sea. My eyelash covers the arm of the galaxy with one word that means, here. I shake … Continued

beyza ozer

Split This Rock Poem of the Week: beyza ozer

When I Kiss You, A Casket Opens  — after june 12, 2016 this is not terrorism this is toxic masculinity  made in the USA when my mother hears  about orlando she doesn’t look at me the next day is three years  to the night we first kissed  & it actually meant something  to both of us … Continued