{"id":165854,"date":"2026-02-23T17:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/165854\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T17:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:25:08","slug":"st-pete-announces-usfsp-alum-as-new-poet-laureate-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/165854\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete announces USFSP alum as new poet laureate\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnson-Green will share his work at city events and youth programming, inspiring the next generation of writers and artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by City of St. Petersburg<\/p>\n

By Julia Ferrara\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the city\u2019s flag raising on Feb. 5 in commemoration of Black History Month, the city was introduced to a new poet laureate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

University of South Florida St. Petersburg alum Denzel Johnson-Green was selected to serve as an ambassador for literature as the City of St. Petersburg\u2019s first Black poet laureate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The poet laureate usually holds their position for the mayor\u2019s term and Johnson-Greene will join a distinguished body of poets who previously held the role, including Peter Meinke, Helen Wallace, and more recently, Gloria Mu\u00f1oz.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

His reaction was one of surprise and astonishment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I began to babble something like Courage the Cowardly dog,\u201d Johnson-Green told The Crow\u2019s Nest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson-Green\u2019s experience with poetry began about eight years ago, but he still considers himself new to it. He stayed away from the art form for a long time because of the sad connotations it carried.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This changed when he attended a poetry open mic at Studio@620, a local visual and performing arts venue in downtown St. Petersburg.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe walls were a passionate red, the seating was cool and raised up like a theatre, and the poets were everyday people; the oldest around sixty-three and the youngest was about seven,\u201d said Johnson-Green.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter washing dishes at a crappy job, I knew that I wanted more, and those folks helped me imagine what more could look like,\u201d said Johnson-Green.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson-Green kept attending these open mics and eventually was hired by the venue \u2014 still washing a fair number of dishes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This slowly grew into more poetry-related community involvement. Johnson-Green has hosted a weekly poetry workshop every Sunday at Black Crow Coffee Co.\u2019s Grand Central location since 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was also on the board for Keep St. Pete Lit, an organization that promotes literary community in the city, as well as for The Friends of Jack Kerouac.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, he hosts an open mic at Studio@620.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson-Green is also the mind behind the local poetry journal \u201cNeptune,\u201d which has been nominated for best literary journal by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with that Johnson-Green has been a part of poetry events at the Dal\u00ed museum, the Grow House in Tampa, and several bookstores in St. Petersburg.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s all these little nooks and crannies that host poetry events, gotta love it,\u201d said Johnson-Green.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the poet laureate, Johnson-Green will get to be a part of poetry events around the city and will get to organize some for National Poetry Month in April.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the flag raising ceremony earlier this month, Johnson-Green shared his perspective on poetry and why he it\u2019s so important to him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPoetry believes in us; teaches us that we all have rich, inner worlds waiting for dazzling articulation, and that we are worthy of this,\u201d said Johnson-Green.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMay wonder always be within our reach, and may we have the courage to grasp it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 61 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Written by: Julia Ferrara<\/a> on February 23, 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnson-Green will share his work at city events and youth programming, inspiring the next generation of writers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-165854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}