Poetry as Power: Lynn’s First Poet Laureate Builds Community Through Creative Spaces

About the Podcast

Creativity Connects with Mikki Wilson is a Creative Collective podcast that goes beyond the brand and into the authentic journeys of women entrepreneurs who are members of the Creative Collective. Each episode, host Mikki Wilson, from Dot Connector Consulting, sits down with a woman business owner from the Creative Collective community to explore her unique path, what drives her, and where she’s headed next. This series illuminates the moments, motivations, and messy middles that shape women’s experiences as creators and business leaders in the creative economy. Jenni Stuart Fine Jewelry supports this podcast series.

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The Power of Vulnerable Leadership

When Michelle LaPoetica Richardson speaks about poetry saving her life, she’s not speaking in metaphors. As Lynn’s first-ever Poet Laureate, this bilingual poet and cultural connector has transformed her struggles into a powerful force for community healing. In our latest Creativity Connects conversation, we discovered how one person’s commitment to creating accessible creative spaces can reshape an entire city’s cultural landscape.

Born to Dominican immigrant parents in Peabody, Michelle’s journey began at age 8 when her father made her read Spanish poets aloud—Antonio Machado and Salomé Ureña among them. “I didn’t understand poetry for what it was,” she reflects. “I would read it, it would rhyme, it was cool. But I still didn’t understand it for what it was.” What she couldn’t have known then was how poetry would become her lifeline through years of intermittent homelessness, her vehicle for advocacy, and ultimately, her tool for transforming communities.

From Personal Struggle to Public Service

Michelle’s path to becoming Poet Laureate wasn’t linear. After her parents’ divorce and periods of homelessness, she found solace and purpose in open mics—not initially as a performer, but as an organizer. “Spanish was my first language,” she explains. “I wanted to create a space for poets like me, that spoke English, spoke Spanish, and were bilingual, and did the Spanglish.”

What began as a room she hoped would fill with like-minded poets instead attracted high school students who showed up “every week, like clockwork.” Watching these young people evolve from writing on paper to memorizing and performing their work sparked something profound in Michelle. “I’ve watched many a wallflower blossom and bloom,” she shares, “in the most beautiful of ways in the most unstable of environments and circumstances.”

For years, Michelle funded these open mics out of pocket, sometimes counting on passed-hat collections for her commute home from Boston shelters. “I would commute buses and trains and commuter rails and get to the open mic,” she recalls. “Sometimes I would be counting on whatever I’d collect in the hat to get my fare to go back home.”

Creating Safe Spaces for Authentic Expression

Today, Michelle’s #DENCITY series at the Neal Rantoul Vault Theatre represents a revolutionary approach to community arts programming. Every first and third Sunday, from 4 PM to 11 PM, she creates what she calls an “ecosystem” rather than just an event. The evening begins with youth workshops and open mic, transitions into guided meditation with a Reiki master, and concludes with an 18+ open mic that welcomes all forms of creative expression.

What makes Michelle’s approach unique is her commitment to disrupting comfort zones constructively. Every attendee receives a personalized writing prompt upon arrival. “People that have perhaps never written will sit down and write and surprise themselves,” she explains. “And that whole process is magic to me.”

Her open mics have become healing spaces for people from all walks of life. “We had people celebrating chips. We had people celebrating sobriety. We had people talking about what got them hooked in the first place,” Michelle shares about attendees who would come straight from recovery meetings. This intersection of art and healing creates what she calls “a room full of different types of humans in different levels and stages of the human experience.”

Beyond Traditional Venue Models

Michelle’s vision extends beyond typical performance spaces. She’s created a “creative soul marketplace” where makers can sell their work without venue fees, where every performance is documented by photographers, and where the focus remains on community building rather than profit. “There is no box,” Michelle insists. “The box itself is an illusion.”

This philosophy manifests in practical ways. Having secured grant funding (her first grant came through Creative Collective member Tia Cole), Michelle can now sustain her programming without personal financial strain. “Now I see myself able to run this open mic and not put myself in a hole as a result. It’s life changing,” she reflects.

The Urgency of Voice and Connection

“There’s a need right now for people to speak,” Michelle observes. “People are desperate to feel something. Everything is at an all-time high, except happiness, peace, joy, love.” Her response to this collective yearning is to create spaces where vulnerability becomes strength, where differences dissolve in shared humanity.

Michelle’s transparency about her own journey—including her experiences with homelessness that many close friends never knew about—creates permission for others to bring their whole selves to creative spaces. “I wear a great mask, and it took me years to perfect it,” she admits. “If I want you to know, you gonna find out, but if I don’t want you to know, that part.”

This vulnerability as Lynn’s Poet Laureate models a different kind of leadership—one that acknowledges struggle while celebrating resilience. “My goal is to become who I’ve needed,” she explains. “Every time I’ve struggled, every time I’ve been hurt, every time I’ve been in pain, I’ve needed some kind of something, some kind of someone.”

Building Ecosystems, Not Just Networks

Michelle’s connection to Creative Collective exemplifies her belief in collaborative power. “You walk into any coffee with a collective on any given morning, you’re gonna walk into a room that pretty much anything you got going on can be resolved,” she explains. This ecosystem approach—where everyone’s success contributes to collective strength—challenges traditional competitive models.

“You’re not my competition,” Michelle emphasizes when discussing relationships with other powerful women in the community. “The more we spread that… one brings more benefits than the other.” This philosophy of abundance over scarcity creates ripple effects throughout the creative community.

A Call to Creative Action

As our conversation drew to a close, Michelle left us with a profound challenge: “Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme. You could say something poetic and there’s no rhythm, no rhyme pattern, there’s no harmony, nothing. Just say something beautiful. Say something genuine. Say something from your soul. If it’s your soul speak, it’s going to be beautiful regardless.”

For those of us in the creative economy, Michelle’s journey offers vital lessons. Success isn’t just about individual achievement—it’s about creating platforms where others can discover their voices. It’s about transforming personal pain into collective healing. It’s about recognizing that when we build from a place of authentic truth and community need, we create something far more powerful than a business or a program. We create transformation.

Michelle reminds us that accountability and love can coexist, that vulnerability and strength are partners, not opposites. Her work challenges us all to consider: How are we using our platforms to amplify unheard voices? How are we creating spaces that welcome the full spectrum of human experience? And how are we becoming who we needed when we struggled?

Continuing the Conversation

As we witness leaders like Michelle LaPoetica Richardson transforming cities through poetry and presence, we’re reminded that the most powerful movements often begin with a single person deciding to create what they needed but couldn’t find. Her work invites us to explore our own capacity for community building and to recognize that in giving others a voice, we often find our own.

Credits: Hosted by Mikki Wilson, founder of Dot Connector Consulting
Produced by Randyll Collum for Peabody TV (peabodytv.org)
A Creative Collective podcast (creativecollectivema.com)
Sponsored by Jenni Stuart Fine Jewelry

Episode Description

In this profound episode of Creativity Connects, host Mikki Wilson sits down with Michelle LaPoetica Richardson, Lynn’s first-ever Poet Laureate and longtime Creative Collective member. Michelle shares her transformative journey from experiencing homelessness while hosting open mics to becoming a cultural force who uses poetry as a bridge for community healing, empowerment, and connection.

Through candid conversation, we explore how Michelle’s #DENCITY open mic series creates revolutionary spaces where youth workshops flow into adult performances, where recovery meets artistry, and where everyone receives a writing prompt that might unlock their voice for the first time. Her transparent discussion about funding creative work, building inclusive communities, and becoming “who I’ve needed” offers profound insights for entrepreneurs and artists alike.

Key takeaways include:

• How personal struggle can fuel community transformation
• Creating ecosystems versus traditional networking models
• The power of vulnerability in leadership
• Making creative spaces financially and emotionally accessible
• Using art as a vehicle for healing and connection

Connect with Michelle LaPoetica Richardson:

• #DENCITY Open Mics: First & Third Sundays, 25 Exchange Street, Lynn, MA
• Youth Open Mic: 4-6 PM (workshops 4-5 PM)
• Guided Meditation: 6:15-6:45 PM
• 18+ Open Mic: 7-11 PM
• Instagram: @MichelleApoetica
• All events are free and open to all forms of creative expression

Credits: Hosted by Mikki Wilson, founder of Dot Connector Consulting.

Produced by Randyll Collum for Peabody TV (peabodytv.org), A Creative Collective podcast (creativecollectivema.com).

Sponsored by Jenni Stuart Fine Jewelry