Kay Poema is an interdisciplinary artist, and educator whose work bridges language and image to explore themes of memory, identity, and transformation. The author of Cry Sweat Bleed Write ( Lily Poetry Review Books) and Diary of Intercessor (Finishing Line Press). She served as the Bronx Poet Laureate from 2023 to 2025, and was the winter 2025-2026 Artist in Residence at the BxArts Factory, where she presented a solo art exhibition based on her forthcoming memoir, Where the Sun Splits Open. Kay believes the poetic voice is responsible for blessing and bruising the inquiring reader and her digital art carries this same pulse, where layers gather holding rupture and return in the same breath. When Kay isn't teaching or creating she can be found nurturing her plants and her two sons, in the heart of the South Bronx.