poetry & music.

poetry: Azmera is an award-winning poet whose work bridges spoken word, performance, and cultural studies. In 2015, she wrote, directed, and produced the spoken-word series Break The Boxes, beginning with her poem Capoeira, a project that took her to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where she spent ten months studying capoeira and spoken word—what she terms “Capoetics”—as an artistic intervention and violence prevention practice for women and girls. Her early work with the Break The Boxes series earned her the 2016 USC Center for Black Culture and Student Affairs Most Innovative Trojan Award and the USC Alpha Phi Alpha Maya Angelou Artistry Award.

In 2017, she performed an original poem at the Los Angeles Theatre Center during the inaugural Johnny Guitar Watson Awards Gala and presented her commissioned poem “The Future” at the International Society of Black Latinos Awards Gala honoring Manny Mota, as well as at the USC Women’s Conference and the USC Black Alumni Association Graduation Ceremony. She was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship for 2017–2018. In 2020, Azmera became a co-founder and executive leader of the global Hip Hop collective Follow The Keepers, where she co-designed bilingual programming in English and Portuguese, honoring Black women’s contributions to Hip Hop’s five-decade herstory. She was commissioned that same year to honor pioneering scholar Dr. Tricia Rose with an original poem for the Roses Now!event and also accepted an invitation from Harvard’s Graduate Commons to perform a commissioned poem alongside distinguished poet and professor Major Jackson in celebration of Black arts. In 2024, Azmera’s original poem “Breathe” was featured in the film Speak Less, directed by award-winning filmmaker, Kelly Kali. In 2025, she published her celebrated collection Breaking The Boxes: Poems for Keeping Hope Alive When Your Faith Is Fractured, and her work also appeared in We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from Freedom Church of the Poor, by the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice.

music: As an independent musician, Azmera produced & released her debut album Young Spirit Old Soul (2023) and the EP Az-a-Mirror (2024). She co-produced and co-directed the music video Zero-EFC (2024), filmed at Harvard University. In 2024, she appeared on CBS Mornings as a semi-finalist alongside her family band, performing an original rendition of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.” Highlights of her musical journey include collaborations with incarcerated artists at Boston’s Nashua Street Jail through the Prison Studies Project, as well as collaborations with timeless musicians and producers such as akua naru on the single “Say How You Feel” (2024), Aric B. on“Best Friend” (2020), and her husband Dennis on the popular track “Crashing Into You” from their debut join album Noble Sound (2023). She continues to expand her artistic practice and innovate on several forthcoming projects across poetry, music, and cultural organizing.

Past events.

Select past commissioned performances, collaborations, events.

Live Poetry Performance.

Gallery.