My name is Yomalis (she/her), and I was born & raised in Washington Heights, NYC.
After studying History at Dartmouth College, I worked as a public school teacher for five years. I taught Social Studies, Language Arts, and Dual-Language Social Studies (in Spanish)—mostly at the middle school level. During that time, I received a Master’s in Teaching from the University of Washington.
Now, I care for my two young children full-time and devote all of my spare time to reading, writing & revising poetry, studying craft, and taking on gigs whenever possible. Since devoting myself to poetry, I was awarded a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship in Fall 2023, a Parent-Writer Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing in Spring 2024, and a scholarship for The Seventh Wave’s Digital Residency in Summer 2024. I have poems forthcoming in The Marbled Sigh and Hot Pot Magazine. I’m working on my first chapbook.
I also host a free, weekly Creativity Circle (Oct-Feb, Sundays at 1pm EST), pick up part-time teaching or poetry gigs when I can, write a monthly newsletter, and offer seasonal poetry workshops. Please don’t hesitate to connect. :)
Currently reading… (November 2024):
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman
Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith (on the Libby app!)
Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha
She Says by Vénus Khoury-Ghata, translated by Marilyn Hacker
BLUFF by danez smith
Black, Brown, & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora Edited by Franklin Rosemont and Robin D.G. Kelley
Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World by Jane Hirshfield (on the Libby app!)
Check out my Bookshop Affiliate Shop here.
