Antoinette Brim-Bell

Antoinette Brim-Bell (Antoinette Brim), Connecticut’s 8th State Poet Laureate, is the author of three full-length poetry collections:  These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love, and Psalm of the Sunflower.  She is a Cave Canem Foundation Fellow and an alumna of Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA). Her poetry has appeared in various journals, magazines, textbooks, and anthologies, as well as in Poetry Magazine and on Poem-a-Day.  Brim-Bell has published critical works, “The Myopic Eye in Alice Walker’s ‘Flowers’” (Critical Insights: Alice Walker, Salem Press) and “Juxtaposed Dichotomies: the idealized white suburban pastoral, the surrealist tableau of black poverty & the Women in between” (The Whiskey of Our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent, Haymarket Books).  Brim-Bell was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry and essay. 

The New England Ballet commissioned a ballet based on Brim-Bell’s These Women You Gave Me.  New York-based ballet choreographer Sarah Grace created the ballet In Her Image, which was danced in Connecticut and on the Alvin Ailey stage in New York City.    

A printmaker and collage artist, Brim-Bell exhibited both poetry and monoprints in the Artist-Poet Exhibit at the Eureka Gallery at Art Center East, Jazz: An exhibition of Poetry, Prints, and Photography at the Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery in New Haven, CT, and Sheroes, in partnership with the Alliance of Women Veterans at the Grove in New Haven, CT.  She serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of Indolent Arts Foundation based in New York City.  She is a past Board Member of OneWorld Progressive Institute, and a past President of the Board of Directors of the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT.

Additionally, Brim-Bell hosted a series of Black History Month television programs for the OneWorld Progressive Institute.  She is also a former guest host of Patrick Oliver’s Literary Nation Talk Radio (KABF 88.3, Little Rock), for which she interviewed a variety of entertainers, literary figures, political pundits, and community developers.  A sought-after speaker, editor, educator, and consultant, Brim-Bell is a Professor of English at Capital Community College in Hartford, CT.