The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Raina Juanita León was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A professor, critic, poet, editor, visual artist, and archivist, she is the author of four collections of poetry and two chapbooks: black god mother this body (Black Freighter Press, 2022), Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self  (Alley Cat Books, 2019),  Profeta Without Refuge (Nomadic Press, 2016), Sombra: dis(locate) (Salmon Poetry, 2016), Boogeyman Dawn (Salmon Poetry, 2013), and Canticle of Idols (Wordtech Communications Inc., 2008). She earned a BA in journalism from Pennsylvania State University in 2003; an MA in the Teaching of English from Columbia University in 2004; an MA in educational leadership from Framingham University in 2014; a PhD in Culture, Curriculum, and Change from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2010; and an MFA in creative writing and poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California in 2016. León’s work explores motherhood, Blackness, and identity and is strongly influenced by her time studying in New York City, performing with the Nuyorican poetry community, and studying within creative communities that especially center writers of the Global Majority like Cave Canem, Cantomundo, Macondo, VONA, Anaphora, Hurston Wright Foundation, and the McCormack Writing Center, among others. León was also influenced by the writers Sonia Sanchez, Martín Espada, Lucille Clifton, Federico García Lorca, June Jordan, Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, and Pedro Pietri. In 2008, she co-founded the literary magazine The Acentos Review with the Dominican poet Eliel Lucero. León has worked closely and collaborated with the poets Jasminne Mendez, Darrel Alejandro Holmes, Tonya Foster, Alan Pelaez Lopez, Ariana Brown, Grisel Acosta, Yesenia Montilla, Malcolm Friend, Tongo Eisen-Martin, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, among others. She is a recipient of a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant (2023), a Leeway Transformation Award (2025), Letras Boricuas Fellowship (2025), a Velocity Fund grant (2026), and a Puffin Foundation grant (2026). In 2026, León was named Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate. She aims to be an accessible and attentive bridge of connection to the past through language and dedicated mentorship (“Meet Philadelphia’s 2026–2028 Poet Laureate: Raina J. León,” 2026).

Works Cited

“Meet Philadelphia’s 2026–2028 Poet Laureate: Raina J. León.” The Free Library of Philadelphia, Feb. 2026. https://www.freelibrary.org/

León, Raina. Author Questionnaire. The Puerto Rican Literature Project, 2024.

León, Raina. Interview. Conducted by Claire Jimenez, 29 Oct. 2021.