ArtsFairfax Announces 2022-24 Fairfax Poet Laureate Danielle Badra   

ArtsFairfax invites the community to celebrate Danielle Badra as the 2022-2024 Fairfax Poet Laureate. Representing Fairfax County and serving as a poetry ambassador, Ms. Badra accepts the County's esteemed honor and plans to extend her love of poetry through literary engagement activities in Fairfax County Parks.

"Language, for me, is a salve. The more you use it, the more power you have to heal your wounds and the wounds of others," says Ms. Badra. "My experiences in life and in the literary world directly inspire my vision for the next two years as Fairfax Poet Laureate. Through poetry workshops, readings, and activities in the Parks, I want to illuminate how language and our natural environment can be a source of comfort and creativity."

Danielle received her BA in Creative Writing from Kalamazoo College and her MFA in Poetry from George Mason University, where she was the poetry editor of So To Speak, a feminist literary and arts journal, and an intern for Split This Rock. Her manuscript Like We Still Speak was selected by Fady Joudah and Hayan Charara as the winner of the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and published through the University of Arkansas Press. It was named a semi-finalist for the Khayrallah Prize and listed in Entropy's "Best of 2020-2021: Poetry Books & Poetry Collections."

"The Fairfax Poet Laureate is a remarkable example of how support to a single artist can impact the whole County," says Linda S. Sullivan, ArtsFairfax President & CEO. "Danielle's vision to bring poetry to the parks is inspired, and we're as excited to learn from her as we are thrilled to share her work with the Greater Fairfax community."

Established since 2020, the Fairfax Poet Laureate serves as a literary arts ambassador, promoting poetry as an art form in the county, region, and state. During their tenure, the Fairfax Poet Laureate encourages writing and reading of poetry and all types of literature through a community service project designed for County residents.

Dialogue with the Dead (Finishing Line Press, 2015) is Danielle's first chapbook, a collection of contrapuntal poems in dialogue with her deceased sister. Her poems have appeared in Mizna, Cincinnati Review, The Maynard, Outlook Springs, 45th Parallel, The California Journal of Poetics, Duende, The Greensboro Review, Bad Pony, Rabbit Catastrophe Press, Split This Rock, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere.

In addition to teaching undergraduate composition, literature, and poetry at George Mason University, Danielle has led writing workshops at The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Split This Rock Poetry Festival, OutWrite DC, and in high schools. She has been a featured reader for Split This Rock's "Sunday Kind of Love" series, a judge for Brave New Voices in DC, and a participant in Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a festival commemorating the 2007 bombing of a historic book market in Baghdad, Iraq.

Discover more about Ms. Badra's work at DanielleBadra.com.

ArtsFairfax is the nonprofit designated as Fairfax County's local arts agency. Dedicated to the belief that arts are essential to a thriving community, the ArtsFairfax mission is to expand support for and access to arts and culture opportunities for Fairfax County's 1.2 million residents. By offering informational, financial, and programmatic services, ArtsFairfax promotes the role of arts and culture to deepen social engagement, create a sense of place, and fuel economic growth. Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) since 1964, ArtsFairfax provides these services to all who contribute to and experience arts in Fairfax County, and is funded in part by the County, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as corporations, foundations, and individuals. 

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