Ryan Lindell
Audio By Carbonatix
“Sincerely” is a collaboration between Anythink libraries and Adams County Parks, Open Space and Cultural Arts (POSCA) designed to connect and unify the residents of Adams County to – and through – poetry. In the project’s latest move, it named Kerrie Joy as the inaugural poet laureate of Adams County.
As the resident public library system in Adams County, Anythink was approached by POSCA last year to launch the new initiative. The idea for an Adams County poet laureate began with the question: “What kinds of opportunities can we provide for people right here in their backyard?” says Stacie Ledden, Anythink’s director of strategic partnerships.
“Not everybody can afford to go down to Denver to engage with artists or go to the museum…so we’re looking for opportunities to help create those experiences for people to engage with artists and creatives right here in our community,” she adds.
A panel comprising staff from Anythink, POSCA and the Adams County Arts and Culture Commission chose Joy for her two-year tenure, and the poet kicked it off with a spoken-word performance on August 11 at Anythink’s summer concert series. The official announcement on August 15 was made via a video, in which Joy spoke about the position and shared sections from her poem “What If Our Words Save Us.”
Indeed, the written word has provided salvation throughout Joy’s life. Honed by such literary inspirations as Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, whom she references in her poem, Joy was born in Brooklyn and raised by Pentecostal Jamaican parents in Newburgh, a city in upstate New York. Faith played an integral part in her upbringing, with Christian poetry being her first foray into the art form.
However, when she first shared her poetry on stage at All Nations Church in Queens – where “it all clicked,” she says – it was rife with self-condemnation, born from internalized expectations that conflicted with her queer identity.
“Over time and through a lot of internal battles and mental health struggles, in spite of everything that I had been taught growing up, I continued to find safety in my words,” Joy says. “I continued to create a safe haven.”
Once she repudiated her parents’ wishes that she become a doctor, finding that medical school was not her calling, she enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2008. Upon her return from duty, she entered a three-year marriage to a man she believed she loved in 2014, but ultimately came out to her husband and filed for divorce. Seeking a new setting, Joy followed her brother’s tracks to Denver in 2017, drawn to the city’s artistic scene.
From there, Joy began rooting herself in the community. She has performed at TEDx Mile High, Denver’s MLK Day Marade, the 2018 Women’s March and Red Rocks. Joy’s experience leaves her comfortable with the balance between artist and educator, a big component of her new role. As the co-founder of the Kaleidoscope Project, along with co-executive director Chinelo Cary Tyler, she’s led a grassroots nonprofit focused on civic and cultural engagement for BIPOC communities and offered mental health support to young artists through TheRAPy Sessions, providing resources to express themselves through music. Joy, who is also a musician with an EP in the works, says that’s what she would have wanted as a youth.
“[Tyler] and I started to evaluate: What do we wish we had had when we were kids? What are the resources, the opportunities and the mentorship that we wish we’d had when we were in high school, middle school, elementary school?” Joy recalls. “And based on that question, we just started to develop some programs trying to address that answer.”
Joy’s term as poet laureate will span a wide variety of content and programming, according to Joy and Ledden, including commissioned original works, workshops and performances. Specific ideas such as readings at nursing homes, a collection of works to be published at the end of the residency and caroling come Christmas time, per Joy’s holiday spirit, are also in consideration, with more details set to be released on Anythink’s social media and website.
As poet laureate, Joy hopes to meet communities where they are. Her position is in its development stage, and she wants to use the next two years to set the bar high. There are several ideas she has been cooking up – such as a revival of the Poetics Fashion Show from her time as the 2022 Creative-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum or a poetry slam, whose winner will have the opportunity to collaborate and publish work with Joy – but the desires of the community are her primary focus.
“I want everyone in Adams County, but especially the writers in Adams County, to really understand the power of their words. Maya Angelou told us that words are things, and they are,” Joy says. “They literally create our world. They create our laws. They create the mores that have elevated people and empowered people and have also sentenced people to death. … My hope is that after these two years are up, people will understand the power of their words and be way more intentional moving forward about the world that they want to create with their words.”
More information and updates on the poet laureate can be found here. Learn more about Kerrie Joy here.