About

Jo performing his poetry at an open mic in 2020. (Image description: Jo, a Black woman, wears a blue, white, and red striped pullover as well as a hat and glasses. He is holding his phone and looking up and smiling.)

Tallawah (adj.): a Jamaican Patois word meaning “strong” or “resilient.” It is said that Jamaica’s unofficial motto is Wi likkle, but wi tallawah. (We are small, but we are mighty.)

Jo (Foderingham) Brown (she/her and he/him) is a writer, student, and all-around nerd from Lithonia, Georgia living in D.C.

Jo is a Black, queer, disabled, gender non-conforming woman born and raised in the American South with Caribbean sensibilities. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at American University; she hopes to pursue a PhD (studying pop culture, Blackness, gender, and sexuality) after she completes the MFA.

Jo has been writing poetry for as long as she can remember, but only started performing in 2016, when she was a finalist for Atlanta’s Brave New Voices slam team. Common subjects of her poetry are misogynoir, Blackness, interpersonal relationships, and her Jamaican heritage.

Jo loves reading (both books and fanfiction), bad television, music, pit bulls, and public libraries. She is a reformed (not really) emo kid and was mildly Tumblr famous in high school.

You can find him on Twitter and Instagram.

Photo credit: Scotty Brown

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