About
Enzo Silon Surin
Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born poet, educator, publisher, and social advocate whose work explores the intersections of identity, power, and collective reckoning. He is the author of American Scapegoat, selected as a Common Read across the Massachusetts Community College system, and When My Body Was a Clinched Fist, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award.
He is not only a writer and speaker, but a facilitator of transformation—creating spaces where poetry and public dialogue become tools for reflection, restoration, and deeper connection. His work centers the lived experiences of Black and immigrant communities, and invites others to engage in the hard but necessary work of truth-telling, healing, and reimagining what it means to belong.
He is the founder of Central Square Press, a publishing platform for socially engaged literature, and currently teaches creative writing at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His poetry and essays have appeared in The Poetry Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers Magazine, and others.
He writes to hold space for what’s been silenced—and imagine what might still be made whole.
A Poetic Life is a Public Act of Restoration.
I believe poetry is more than an art form—it’s a way of bearing witness, resisting silence, and healing through language. As a poet, educator, and advocate, I create intentional spaces for reflection, truth-telling, and deeper connection.
Whether in classrooms, communities, or on the stage, my work invites others to examine the personal within the political, to listen more fully, and to reclaim stories that have long been pushed to the margins.
I see each poem, each workshop, and each conversation as an invitation to engage—to reimagine what wholeness and belonging might look like when we write toward justice, not away from it.
Quick Facts
• Based in: Swampscott, MA
• Founder of: Central Square Press
• Podcast Host: It’s a Poetic Life
Recent Honors
• MCC Grant Recipient
• Massachusetts Book Award Winner
• Featured speaker at ICA Boston, Mass Poetry Festival, and more