Lissa Piercy
USA
Lissa Piercy is a Boston based performance poet, teaching artist, and community organizer. She is a member and co founder of Flatline Poetry, winner of Boston’s 2013 Poetry Award for Best Poetry Group, a member of the 2014 Lizard Lounge Poetry Slam Team, a MassLEAP trained teaching artist, and a TEDx speaker. She brings energy, passion, heart, and grit to each performance, along with determination and drive to use poetry as a means to create change through conversation and action.
"Perhaps it is only the poets who are willing to tell the truth." - Reverend Osagyefo Sekou
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Protect your courage
After the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a series of protests across the United States, Lissa Piercy’s friend and mentor Reverend Osagyefo Sekou said from his pulpit, and in community meetings at his home, that activists must “always include the poets” because “the poets speak the truth before anyone else does.”
In that moment, Lissa knew that it was time to take Strength of Doves, an agency that represents socially conscious, activist spoken word artists, to the next level.
Lissa comes to Watson to turn a network of poets into a fully functioning agency. Strength of Doves currently represents eighteen activist spoken word artists and four multi voice ensembles, including the group Lissa co founded, Flatline Poetry. By building Strength of Doves, Lissa will be able to provide these poets with the support that they need to earn a living doing what they love. “The poets on our roster give me chills each time I hear them perform,” says Lissa, “it is an honor to be building systems that will allow thousands more people to hear these voices.”
