Meet the poet behind the overnight social media viral Bill Cosby poem

Social media outlets recently lit up with a small poem written by Baton Rouge poet and 2018–2019 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, Donney Rose. The piece addresses the recent media storm and sexual assault conviction of defamed comedian, Bill Cosby. Within hours of Rose sharing a screenshot of the piece himself, social media guru and celebrity accounts including The Son of Baldwin and actress Amanda Seales took the piece to the own accounts across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with Seales returning to her spoken word roots to recite the poem. The post even grabbed the attention of Ava Duvernay, who both double tapped the screen grab, as well as shared a broken heart emoji reaction.

So who is the man behind this overnight sensation? Donney Rose is a poet, teaching artist, and community activist from Baton Rouge. He is the marketing director for an arts-based non-profit in his hometown where he also works as a teaching artist facilitating creative writing workshops in various schools. In April 2018, Donney became a 2018–2019 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow based on his community work through the arts. He is the author of The Crying Buck, an acclaimed chapbook of poetry that delves into Black masculinity and vulnerability through a critical lens, and Black Out Loud, a collection of prose-style poetic interpretations of Black History Month 2017 which inspired him to found Black Out Loud Conference, LLC and host the first company’s first-ever conference in Baton Rouge this past August. Rose’s work as a performance poet/writer has been featured in a variety of publications, including Atlanta Black Star, Blavity, Button Poetry, All Def Digital, Slam Find, Drunk In A Midnight Choir, and Nicholls State University’s Gris-Gris literary journal. Donney also contributed two scholarly articles to the St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture, 1st Edition (St. James Press, February 2018).

While Donney has always used his voice to entertain, uplift, and inspire — a true community activist emerged in the summer of 2016. Baton Rouge had become the familiar scene that so many American cities have experienced, with the shooting death of a black man by a Baton Rouge Police officer. Donney not only acted immediately, but he has remained a pivotal community voice through the turmoil, sharing his thoughts to bring light to his city on local, national, and international platforms, including BBC, HuffPost, The New York Times, and PBS’ Democracy Now. In the week’s following the widely publicized incident, protests and militarized policing took over Baton Rouge, followed by the killings of several Baton Rouge law enforcement officers, and finally by a thousand-year flood encompassing much of Louisiana. Donney gave his voice to these causes, most notably contributing to the Fight the Flood album, a project by various Baton Rouge area artists to benefit flood relief projects.

Learn more about Donney Rose by visiting https://www.donneyrosepoetry.com/.