Peter J. Harris

ARtist-in-residence / APRIL 18 - JUNE 26, 2023

As poet Peter J. Harris said “Southeast DC spirals throughout my cultural DNA.” Born and raised in Southeast Washington, DC, Harris then resided in Los Angeles where he was the Altadena Poet Laureate Editor in Chief (2022-2024). In 2023, he was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. He is the author of Safe Arms: 20 Love & Erotic Poems (w/an Ooh Baby Baby moan) (FlowerSong Press, 2022), with Spanish translations by Francisco Letelier (FlowerSong Press), and SongAgain (Beyond Baroque Books). Among his many award-winning works, his 2015 book of poetry, Bless the Ashes (Tia Chucha Press), won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and his book of personal essays, The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My 'Unalienable Right,' won the American Book Award. Harris was a Fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC and was the 2018 Los Angeles COLA Fellow in literary arts. He was the former producer and host of Inspiration House: VoiceMusic for Whole Living, a weekly radio show on KPFK-FM Los Angeles featuring poets in studio reading their work to recorded music (1999 to 2004).

Harris was the founding director of The Black Man of Happiness Project, a creative, intellectual, and artistic exploration of Black men and joy. He wrote the blog WREAKING HAPPINESS: A Joyful Living Journal. For the past 50 years, Harris published his work in a wide variety of publications, and since 1992, was been a member of the Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage, in LA’s Leimert Park.

Learn more about Peter’s work at blackmanofhappiness.com

See You ... Come by Tens

Peter’s residency project, "See You ... Comes by Tens," was hosted at and in collaboration with The American Poetry Museum. Harris, who conceived and curated the event, drew inspiration from his deep involvement with and belief in the power of embracing the presence and happiness of Black men and boys. This philosophy fuels his commitment to being an active participant in a cultural community that steadfastly resists negativity and stagnation, even in the face of adversity and loss. This project was part of Peter’s See You: Faces of The Black Man of Happiness campaign.

Interested in becoming our next artist-in-residence?