Aja Monet

Aja Monet is a surrealist blues poet and cultural worker. In 2007, she won the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe Grand slam poetry award title. She follows the long legacy and tradition of poets participating and assembling in social movements. Aja Monet has collaborated across mediums and disciplines helping to shape and shift culture working with many internationally established artists, scholars, activists, and organisers. Her first full collection of poems entitled "my mother was a freedom fighter" is a testament to all mothers, women, and girls who struggle to live, love, and move freely in the world. Her poems explore migration, spirituality, and femininity. In 2018, her book was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Poetry, and in 2019 she was awarded the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award for Poetry.

Aja Monet also serves as the Artistic Creative Director for V-Day, a global movement to end violence against all women and girls. In 2022, she created an audio play called "VOICES", showcasing the stories and experiences of Black women across the diaspora and the African continent.

Aja Monet’s debut poetry album "when the poems do what they do" was released on June 9, 2023, on drink sum wtr, a new Secretly Canadian imprint. Collaborators on the album include esteemed musicians Lonnie Holley, Christian Scott, Marcus Gilmore, Samora Pinderhughes, Weedie Braimah, and more.

In 2024 she will launch her next full collection of poems called "Florida Water" with Haymarket Books.