This article details the event which took place on August 5, 2023.
If Valduvino Gonçalves lived in his dream world and could change anything about Roxbury, he would add more ice cream shops. Okay, and more affordable housing and renovated school spaces. But the first thing that popped into Gonçalves’s mind was ice cream.
Ice cream shops and neighborhood restaurants need to be more plentiful in the neighborhood, Gonçalves told a crowd of about 25 Saturday afternoon while speaking on a panel called “Dreamscape: Future of Roxbury,” hosted by the Roxbury Poetry Festival.
“We don’t have a lot of family-style restaurants where people can gather,” said Gonçalves, who is a student development counselor at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science. And that makes it harder for community members to get together, he said.
Gonçalves’s panel, which focused on imagining creative solutions and goals for Roxbury, was just one community-led event at the poetry festival. Other workshops included introductions to screenwriting and journalism, studying wordplay in poetry, and understanding and defining spatial justice. The event was scheduled to conclude with a poetry slam Saturday evening when a winner will receive a book contract.
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Links:
The Boston Globe | Roxbury Poetry Festival
