Kay Bell is Russell Sage College’s 2025 Donahue Poet

Person with long braids in a black dress standing in a grassy field with eyes closed

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Bronx Poet Laureate Kay Bell will be giving a public reading in Bush Memorial Center on Russell Sage College’s Troy campus on April 17 at 6 p.m.

A question and answer session will follow the reading. The event is open to the public and is free of charge.

Kay Bell is a visionary poet, educator, and community leader, currently serving as the 2023-2025 Bronx Poet Laureate. Author of two poetry collections, Cry Sweat Bleed Write and Diary of an Intercessor, Bell believes writing works as a birthing floor for healing, invention, and reimagination where the poetic voice is responsible for both blessing and bruising the inquiring reader.

She earned an MFA from The City College of New York, where she also works as an adjunct professor and academic advisor. When Bell isn’t teaching or writing, she can be found nurturing her plants and her two sons in the heart of the South Bronx.

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