PREVIEW: D. Colin to be named Poet Laureate by the YWCA of the Greater Capital Region
06/25 @ Hart Cluett Museum, Troy
“What being honored this way means, more than anything, is how much bigger the work is beyond me.”
D. Colin is a storyteller and creative in every sense of those words.
Poet, visual artist, educator, curator, performer, activist, and the list goes on.
And yes, all of that is true, but to describe Colin by listing what she does almost feels like missing the point. Her work feels like one ongoing language, spoken through whatever form the moment asks of her, and yet the center remains constant.
That center is the expansive, radical, human-centered world of D. Colin.
On Thursday, June 25, the YWCA of the Greater Capital Region will honor Colin by recognizing her as the organization’s Poet Laureate during Poet Laureate Debut and Celebration at the Hart Cluett Museum in Troy.
Presented in partnership with the Hart Cluett Museum, the evening will recognize Colin’s contributions as a poet, artist, and activist, a well-earned celebration of all that D. has created and accomplished.
Poets and colleagues will read selected poems from Colin’s collection of work; the night will serve as both a celebration of what she has built, as well as a formal welcome into this new role.
“Naming D. Colin as our Poet Laureate is in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the arts, storytelling, community engagement, and social justice throughout the Capital Region and beyond,” said YWCA-GCR CEO Starletta Renée.
Photos by Kiki Vassilakis
Her creative practice is rooted in the belief that art is a means of healing, liberation, visibility, and understanding. Through storytelling, her work remembers connection, honors identity, and imagines futures that aren’t restricted by the systems that try to shrink people down.
“It means so much to be the first one named by YWCA of the Greater Capital Region and to be seen for how my poetry aligns with their mission to empower women and eliminate racism,” Colin says.
That sentence carries the weight of the honor. Colin is not only being recognized for the beauty of her words, but for the way those words move through community, identity, and justice. For the YWCA-GCR to name her as its Poet Laureate is to recognize her as a force capable of holding truth, creating visibility, and making space where space has not always been given freely, a sentiment synonymous with D. Colin.
Through Poetic Vibe, an open mic created by Colin, she has helped build a space where poetry can be encountered through many different lenses. First-time poets, longtime writers, readers, listeners, performers, and community members who may not have known where they fit inside the literary world have all found a place to enter.
Colin has been able to watch the fruits of that labor in real time.
“It also means a lot when people see how hard I work to create spaces for others to be inspired and find their own voices,” Colin says.
That is the work beneath the work.
Colin writes, Colin performs, Colin educates, and Colin creates. But she also makes room. There is room for Blackness, for womanhood, for intersectionality, memory, grief, resistance, joy, healing, and for all of these pieces and feelings that are deeply human.
“As a daughter of immigrants and a Black woman, it’s a dream,” she says. “Poetry has made the world possible.”
YWCA-GCR’s Poet Laureate Debut and Celebration is a night to honor D. Colin’s powerful world of creation, but also a night to honor what that world has made possible for her and for the community. It is a celebration of a life and practice built on storytelling as a form of connection, and creativity as a way toward freedom.
The title may be new, but the work most certainly is not. Colin has been doing the work in rooms where people read for the first time, listen for the first time, or hear something in a poem that allows them to recognize themselves in a way they may not have been able to before. She has been doing it through visual art, performance, education, and the steady belief that creativity can make people more visible to themselves and to each other.
The event will take place Thursday, June 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Hart Cluett Museum, located at 57 2nd Street in Troy. Attendees can enjoy food, dessert, and refreshments, along with the opportunity to purchase print copies of Colin’s work.
Tickets are available online at dcolin.eventbrite.com.