Visiting Poets Light Up Campus and the Classroom in Honor of Poetry Month

As part of the School’s annual celebration of Poetry Month, two distinguished poets came to campus for recitations, classroom visits, and insights into the joys of poetry. 

To kick off the monthlong festivities, poet Andres Cordoba ’15 came to campus on April 3 and shared examples of his writing, including a few new pieces written for the occasion. These works reminisced on his own triumphs and misadventures as a Belmont Hill student, and while some of the faculty names featured in the stories might not have been recognized by current students, the humorous view of student life certainly rang true.  

In the decade-plus since graduating, Mr. Cordoba has cultivated a vibrant poetic voice. He was selected by the Poetry Foundation as a 2025 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow, which recognizes young poets for their contributions to the art form and helps empower the further development of their work. Mr. Cordoba lives in New York, where he is the co-poetry editor for Big Score Lit and an MFA candidate in fiction at New York University. His work can be found in The Harvard Review, The Gandy Dancer, and Epiphany. 

On April 16, revered slam poet Taylor Mali performed in Hamilton Chapel as the Doctor Jeffrey A. Fast Visiting Authors and Writers Fund Speaker. Mr. Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, he is the author of five collections of poetry and a chapbook, The Whetting Stone, which won the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize. He is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book, What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World. He lives in Brooklyn where he curates the Page Meets Stage reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club.

In addition to his Chapel presentation, Mr. Mali visited English 2 and Creative Writing courses, overlapping with student Poetry Fest presentations. While his presence perhaps added to the pressure of the boys’ recitations of memorized poems, it also provided them with the unique opportunity of hearing feedback and encouragement in real time from a poet of Mr. Mali’s caliber and experience. 

These visits were part of the School’s larger commitment to honoring Poetry Month. Each day of April, student crafted poems are shared to the broader community, and the festivities culminate in the annual Poetry Fest finals in Hamilton Chapel. This year’s event will take place on Friday, April 24 and will include 12 finalists from five different forms.