The Parkmont Poetry Festival

Born in Puerto Rico, Tatiana Figueroa Ramírez has received fellowships from VONA Voices and Anaphora Arts, having worked with Willie Perdomo and Danez Smith. Tatiana currently performs, facilitates workshops, and hosts events in the DC area, having previously done so across the United States and the Dominican Republic at venues including The Kennedy Center and New York University. Her work has been featured in MSNBC’s “Leguizamo Does America” and The Acentos Review, among other publications. Tatiana is the author of Coconut Curls y Café con Leche (2019), Despojo (2020), and Exhume (forthcoming).
Tatiana and fellow Semifinalist Judge Sean Felix have just begun reading the poems submitted to the Parkmont Poetry Festival. From those hundreds of works, they will select 40 by middle school students and 40 by high school students to move on to the final round of the Festival. Thank you to both Tatiana and Sean! We are very lucky to have such gifted artists support D.C.'s young authors! Now in its 44th year, the Parkmont Poetry Festival is open to all middle and high school students who attend school in Washington D.C. The Festival will culminate in a celebration and reading on May 2.

We are delighted to announce the judges for the 2026 Parkmont Poetry Festival! First up is returning Semifinalist Judge Sean Felix. Sean is a citizen poet from Washington, D.C. He has performed his long-form poetry with the John Howard Jazz Trio and read with The Inner Loop and at the 804 Salon. He is also an award-winning and avid haiku poet, and has published his long-form poetry with Broken Spine, Humana Obscura, the Mid-Atlantic Review, Washington Writers Publishing House, and other literary journals. He was a semifinalist judge for the Parkmont Poetry contest last year and believes it is one of the best poetry contests in the world for aspiring school-age poets. We are thrilled that Sean is back for his second year with the Festival! Thank you, Sean!