Tonya Ingram

Tonya Ingram (1991-2022) was the 2011 New York Knicks Poetry Slam champion, a member and co-founder of NYU’s poetry slam team, a member of the 2011 Urban Word-NYC team, the 2013 Nuyorican Grand Slam team and the 2015 Da Poetry Lounge Slam team. She was a six-time poetry slam finalist, a 2014 Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Growl and Snare. Her work has traveled throughout the United States, Ghana, The Literary Bohemian, Huffington Post, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, LupusChick.com, For Harriet, Buzzfeed, Afropunk, Rude Magazine, Cultural Weekly, Marie Claire Italia, The WILD, Upworthy, To Write Love On Her Arms, and season four of Lexus' Verses and Flow. Her work focuses on the intersectionality of art as healing and art as awareness about mental and physical health. Tonya shared the stage with Hill Harper, Soledad O’ Brien, President Clinton, Anthony Hamilton, Lynn Whitfield, and others. She was a New York University alumna, a Cincinnati native, a Bronx-bred introvert and a graduate from Otis College of Art & Design where she obtained her MFA in Public Practice. Her full-length poetry collection, Another Black Girl Miracle will be rereleased through El Martillo Press in 2026.