Second-ever Bronx Poet Laureate Kay Bell ready to teach and learn

Kay Bell was recently named the second-ever Bronx Poet Laureate.

Photo courtesy Hostos Community College

As the new Bronx Poet Laureate, Kay Bell expects to learn as much as she teaches.

Bell, a South Bronx resident, was named the second-ever Bronx Poet Laureate in June and will hold the position until 2025. The Bronx Poet Laureate is tasked with “promoting and exemplifying a love and appreciation for reading and writing poetry,” according to Roya Marsh, co-founder of the position. The position was created by The Bronx is Reading, the organization behind the Bronx Book Festival.

The inaugural poet to hold the title, Haydil Henriquez, was crowned in 2021. 

“I see the poem as a collaboration between the writer and the reader,” Bell told the Bronx Times. “I write and my reader makes sense of my words. We connect in our shared experiences, but also we learn from each other in the way we individualize what we get from the poem.”

As poet laureate, Bell has a goal of “strengthening the spirit of creativity” and promoting poetry, literacy and education in the borough. She is also passionate about bringing arts programs to public schools, as well as issues that impact marginalized communities.

All in all, Bell wants to inspire the next generation of writers and poets.

Born in Barbados, Bell was raised in Harlem until landing in the Bronx at age 11. She attended Hostos Community College, gave birth to her sons at Albert Einstein Hospital and rented her first apartment in the Bronx.

And perhaps most importantly, she learned to write poetry in the Bronx from her sixth grade teacher. She has been writing ever since.

Bell writes about family and her experiences as a Black woman navigating motherhood, racism and love. But she believes her work “bears universal truth” and connects people in a way that validates their own experiences.

“I’m inspired by healing,” Bell said. “Writing in itself has known therapeutic…