Meet Westchester’s Poet Laureate: Phylisha Villanueva

Phylisha Villanueva says she wasn’t much of a reader as a child, until stresses in her family life led her to books. “I didn’t want to be in the house after school, so I joined a book club,” she says. Villanueva credits Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes, in which teens tell their stories using poetry, with making her into a writer.

“My first poem was about being mad at my mom because she wouldn’t let me go to a school dance,” Villanueva says. “I remember feeling better after I wrote it.”

Now 32 and working on her MFA in poetry at St. Francis College, Villanueva has a self-published book, years of experience organizing and participating in poetry events, and was recently named the second Westchester Poet Laureate by County Executive George Latimer and ArtsWestchester. Chosen from 14 applicants, Villanueva, who lives in Yonkers with her seven-year-old daughter Paislyn, will receive a $10,000 honorarium from Westchester County for each year of her three-year term, which began in January. She succeeds poet B.K. Fischer, the county’s first Poet Laureate.

“A lifelong lover of poetry and committed advocate for community arts development and poetry, Phylisha is a passionate artist interested in helping young people find their voices and express themselves through the written and spoken word,” said ArtsWestchester CEO Janet Langsam. County Executive George Latimer said, “There is tremendous literary talent in Westchester and tremendous interest in poetry from people of all ages…The County looks forward to working with Phylisha and ArtsWestchester to do just that over the next three years.”

Villanueva, a Belizean-American, writes about identity, colorism, inherited trauma, resilience, women’s empowerment, Black culture and mysticism. In Pantoum For My Trauma, she writes: “What I know for sure / Trauma is a ghost mad at the audacity / You decided to make a safe home out of your body.”

A specialist in community arts development, she co-founded the Yonkers Writing Group and serves as a Board advisor and chairperson for the Blue Door Art Center membership committee in Yonkers.

Her attraction to spoken word poetry took her to poetry slams in New York City by the time she was 16, an hour-long trip on the train. “I would get home at 2am,’” she recalled. She then found a creative outpost closer to home at Blue Door, where she met resident poet Golda Solomon, now the Poet Laureate of Yonkers, whom she calls “a huge influence.”

In 2009, when she was 17, Villanueva contacted Blue Door’s then-Executive Director, Arlé Sklar-Weinstein, about starting a teen open mic. To her surprise, the answer was an immediate yes. “I didn’t realize what I was doing was so radical, but I recognized that the community needed it,” Villanueva says. She ran the program for five years, later becoming the center’s director of children’s programming.

Her creative energy dissipated while she dealt with personal issues, and she stopped writing for nearly four years. Her daughter Paislyn was born in 2016 and before she turned one, Villanueva left what she describes as an abusive relationship with her daughter’s father. After securing her own apartment, she began writing again, in the form of letters to Paislyn. “The letters are the poems,” Villanueva says. “I wanted her to know what happened.”

In 2019, Villanueva self-published a book, Pretty Girl Special, and held a launch party at Blue Door. “The book was how I healed,” she says. “It’s about how I survived, by protecting myself in this armor, what I call ‘the pretty girl special.’”

Villanueva became a teaching artist with ArtsWestchester in 2021. Through the program, she has led poetry sessions at Valhalla Correctional Facility and Hope House, a nonprofit in Port Chester that supports people recovering from behavioral health conditions. Villanueva loved the work and credits it with giving her the confidence to apply for Poet Laureate. She is currently a member of the Jazz and Poetry Choir Collective, and Tesoro, an international group for women poets.

Villanueva has big plans for her new role as Poet Laureate. “It’s a gift to be in a room with a lot of people,” she said. “I want to do ekphrastic writing in art galleries where stories are being told. I want to bring poetry to tattoo parlors and barber shops, and put poetry prompts on hiking trails. There’s so much opportunity!”