Katelyn Durst is a poet, community artist, creative activist, teacher and youth worker. Katelyn hails from the northern coast of the Great Lake State. She has worked within urban youth development and urban community development for ten years in cities such as Chicago, Denver, DC, LA, Seattle and Flint (MI) . Additionally, she has taught poetry for six years and recently conducted poetry therapy workshops at a youth psychiatric hospital and Freedom Schools summer programming in a workshop focused on healing from the unjust deaths of youth of color

Katelyn is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Urban Studies and Community Arts from Eastern University. This program focuses on trauma-informed art-making to build sustainable and transformative resiliency within urban/inner-city and displaced communities. As an artist-in-residence with Flint Public Art Project, she is developing a narrative community arts project that will give voice to family stories as they process and grow through the current state of the water crisis. She continues to work as a poetry teacher and is additionally developing a food literacy curriculum for Flint schools.

Her poems have appeared in Controlled Burn, The Lightkeeper, Deep Fried Poetry, The Offbeat, Teen Ink, New Poetry Magazine and are forthcoming in Tayo Literary Magazine and the Primal School Blog. In her spare time, Katelyn She dreams of her next great adventure and becoming an urban beekeeper.

Check out one of her poems on The Mudroom!