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Rhythm, Resistance, and Reverence: Celebrating Melba Joyce Boyd

December 5, 2025 - Gabrielle Yeary

The RCAH Center for Poetry, in collaboration with the East Lansing Public Library and the Lansing Poetry Club, recently had the honor of hosting Michigan’s third Poet Laureate, Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd, for a vivid and memorable public reading. The evening celebrated not just poetry, but history, community, and the power of language to hold lived experiences.

Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd is an award-winning writer with thirteen published books—nine of them poetry. As a native Detroiter, Boyd’s work dwells deeply in questions of identity, memory, and the complexities of being an African-American woman in the United States. Her poems often pay tribute to the Black Arts and Civil Rights movements, as well as to the literary figures who shaped her voice, including her mentor, the influential poet and founder of Broadside Press Dudley Randall. Through her writing, she continues to map the intersections of art, activism, and the personal histories that shape collective struggle.

The event opened with remarks from Toby Altman, director of the RCAH Center for Poetry, who introduced both poets who would take the stage: Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd and MSU student Jeremiah Young-Walker.

Altman first invited Young-Walker to read. A junior in MSU’s College of Arts & Letters studying English, Young-Walker works as a student intern at the Center for Poetry and even helped set up the event he was now helping to kick-off. His poems are shaped by the immediacy of current events and the emotional texture of modern life. One of the standout pieces he read, “Lavender,” references the AI system used by the Israeli military for target identification in Gaza. The poem grapples with the chilling implications of new-age warfare, telling a story of fractured brotherhood and the human cost hidden behind technological precision. 

After Young-Walker’s reading, Boyd took the stage to warm applause from an audience that was both diverse and eager. Her presence was instantly electric—confident, humorous, and full of the storytelling ease that can only come from decades of lived experience. She shared anecdotes from her life in Michigan and spoke about meeting Rosa Parks, offering glimpses into a lifetime shaped by both personal encounters and historic moments.

A striking feature of Boyd’s work is her use of dedication. Throughout the evening, she read poems written for loved ones, mentors, and cultural icons who shaped her creative path. With a playful joke that she had begun the night on a more somber note, Boyd closed her reading with one of her favorites, “Rock Steady for the Queen of Soul,” written in honor of Aretha Franklin following her passing in 2018.

Boyd’s poetry carries a strong sense of cadence and musicality—lines that almost insist on being spoken aloud. Her vivid imagery and precise diction invite readers and listeners to conjure their own interpretations. Even those who had never encountered her work before felt an immediate connection to her voice. She shifts fluidly between perspectives, foregrounding the Civil Rights Movement and its legacies. She has written about the murder of Emmett Till, the realities of police brutality, and the ongoing urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement. She writes, too, about family, grief, joy, and what it meant to grow up—and grow into herself—as an African-American poet.

After the reading concluded, Boyd remained to sign letterpress hand-stitched booklets of her poem, light/space created by RCAH Center for Poetry intern Frank Jeffries and members of the recently established Spartan Printing Association. She chatted warmly with newcomers and reconnected with longtime friends, embodying the same generosity offstage that she displays in her work. Eventually, she departed for the night, preparing for an early morning at the Library of Michigan, where she would offer the keynote address to open the Poets’ Roundtable presented by the Lansing Poetry Club and the RCAH Center for Poetry, continuing her lifelong practice of using poetry as a space for community, reflection, and transformation.

 

melba Joyce Boyd (left), a Black woman wearing a print skirt, dark top with ivory colored scarf and a black hat, stands smiling at camera, with her arm around Jeremiah Young-Walker, a Black man wearing a denim shirt over a black top and jeans. A lectern with an East Lansing Public Library banner is off to the right.           A red, hand-stitched booklet bearing the title "light/space" and Melba Joyce Boyd 2025       Inside back cover of a red, hand-stitched booklet bearing the colophon "From "The Inventory of Black Roses", by Melba Joyce Boyd, Past Tents Press, 1988. Printed with permission from the poet. 150 copies were printed in the RCAH Art Studio Printshop, East Lansing, Ml for the RCAH Center for Poetry, November 2025. Printed by Frank Jefferies."

Melba Joyce Boyd (l) with                Letterpress booklet                    Inside back cover showing colophon of

Jeremiah Young-Walker                   of Boyd's poem                          letterpress booklet of Boyd's poem

                                                          "light/space"                              "light/space"