Presented in partnership with the RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU, the Lansing Poetry Club, and the East Lansing Public Library

Please join us as we welcome Michigan Poet Laureate Melba Joyce Boyd to mid-Michigan! Dr. Boyd's reading at the East Lansing Public Library serves as a keynote address to the Lansing Poetry Club's Poets' Roundtable Conference, being held the following day at the Library of Michigan in Lansing, where she will offer a workshop.

A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

The reading is free and open to the public.

A native Detroiter, Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd is the author and/or editor of 13 books and three documentaries. Her latest title, Politics and Poetics: The Legacy of France E.W. Harper, is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press in 2026. A retired distinguished professor in African American studies from WSU and an adjunct faculty member at U-M, her poetry, essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in anthologies, academic journals, cultural periodicals and newspapers in the United States and Europe. The Kresge Foundation honored her as the 2023 Kresge Eminent Artist. She was appointed as Michigan Poet Laureate in February 2025.