In April 2024, Caridad Moro-Gronlier was appointed the second Poet Laureate in County history by Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
Caridad Moro-Gronlier was born in Los Angeles to Cuban immigrant parents who relocated to Miami in 1977 and has lived in South Florida with her family since the age of eight. A career educator and community-driven poet, Caridad’s public work and literary engagement include collaboration with numerous South Florida stakeholders, including Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Miami Dade College, Barry University, Broward College, Florida International University (FIU) Honors College, Miami-Dade Public Library System, The Dranoff Society/Piano Slam, The Escribe Aqui Festival @ The Betsy’s Writer’s Room, The Deering Estate, Vizcaya, The Stonewall Library, The Wolfsonian Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU, O, Miami, The Cintas Foundation, Books & Books, Miami Book Fair, Reading Queer, and collaboration on "A Heroic Sonnet Crown for Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the Residents of Miami-Dade County Series: We Who Rise from Saltwater, Let's Sing! and There’s a wave coming. One can hear it in the sky."
Caridad is the author of three books of poetry, including the winner of the TRP Southern Poetry Breakthrough Prize published by Texas Review Press (2021) and a new book of poetry, As to Your Comment, which is forthcoming later this year. She is also the editor of Grabbed: Poets and Writers Respond to Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing (Beacon Press, 2020).
Caridad serves as the Associate Editor for SWWIM Every Day, an online daily poetry journal for women identifying poets, and as The Betsy’s Writer’s Room Poetry-Curator-At- Large. In 2023, she was Series Editor of From the Writer’s Room at The Betsy for a monthly column for The New Tropic (2023). In addition, her work has been featured in The Best American Poetry Blog, Verse Daily, NPR, The Hive, Split This Rock, Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry, and others.
Caridad is the recipient of a Julia Peterkin Literary Award (2023), an International Latino Book Award Honorable Mention (2022), an Eric Hoffer Book Award Honorable Mention (2022), First Horizon Award Finalist (2022), two Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs Miami-Dade Individual Artists (MIA) Grants (2023 and 2023), an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant (2015), and a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in poetry (2007).
She lives with her wife and son in Westchester.
Projects:
- Watch Caridad read one of her favorite poems as part of Miami's Favorite Poems Project
Poet Laureate Announcement Event
