Detroit Poetry Archive
Black Bottom Archives
Preserving Black Legacy Fellowship
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Detroit Poetry Archive
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The Detroit Poetry Archive (DPA) is a living, multimedia archive founded and curated by Brittini Ward that documents, preserves, and celebrates the legacy of Detroit's spoken word and poetry community. Through oral history interviews, archival photographs, performance recordings, community artifacts, and personal narratives, the archive honors the poets, organizers, venues, and cultural workers whose contributions have shaped Detroit's literary and cultural landscape for generations.
More than a collection of stories, DPA serves as a community-centered preservation initiative rooted in the belief that poetry is both historical record and cultural practice. It explores the intersections of art, activism, healing, spirituality, identity, and community while documenting the spaces and relationships that have sustained Detroit's poetic tradition.
Designed as an evolving public resource, the archive will be shared through exhibitions, oral histories, educational programming, interactive mapping, digital media, and public events. By preserving the voices of those who built the scene while creating pathways for future generations, the Detroit Poetry Archive ensures that Detroit's poetic legacy remains accessible, celebrated, and continuously expanded. The archive stands as both remembrance and roadmap—a living document of a community that has always transformed words into connection, resistance, and possibility.
BRITTINI WARD
Brittini Ward (Eye N Eye the Storyteller) is a Detroit-born storyteller, poet, visual artist, curator, archivist, and community organizer whose work explores the intersections of memory, oral history, and cultural preservation. She is the founder of Eye N Eye LLC and the creator of The Storyholding Framework™, an original methodology that transforms storytelling into a practice of care, reflection, and community design.
Ward is the founder and director of the Detroit Poetry Archive™, a living multimedia archive dedicated to documenting and preserving the legacy of Detroit's spoken word and poetry community through oral histories, photography, performance, exhibitions, and public programming. Grounded in the belief that stories deserve care, the archive honors the poets, organizers, and cultural spaces that have shaped Detroit's literary landscape while creating pathways for future generations to engage with that legacy.
Her practice lives where art, organizing, and ceremony intersect. Whether curating immersive exhibitions, facilitating public dialogue, conducting oral history interviews, or performing original poetry, Ward creates experiences that invite people to remember, reflect, and reconnect with one another.
Her work has been presented by organizations including The Kennedy Center, Black Bottom Archives, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Motown Museum, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, WDET, FOX 2 News, and Irwin House Art Gallery, among others. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Communications and Graphic Design from the University of Michigan–Flint and a Master of Social Justice and Community Organizing from Prescott College. Through every project, Ward transforms memory into method, method into movement, and movement into legacy.
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This project was created through Black Bottom Archives’ Preserving Black Legacy Fellowship program. For more information about the Fellowship, please click here.