SWWIM: Sunni Brown & Elizabeth Jacobson

An evening of contemporary poetry brings two acclaimed voices to an intimate literary setting on Miami Beach.

SWWIM: Sunni Brown & Elizabeth Jacobson takes place Thursday, March 19 at The Betsy Writer’s Room. Part of the ongoing SWWIM Reading Series, the program features celebrated women poets in residence paired with Miami’s literary community, fostering cross-generational dialogue and close engagement between writers and readers. The 2025–2026 season highlights eight distinguished poets from September through April.

Sunni Brown Wilkinson is the author of Rodeo, winner of the 2024 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, as well as The Marriage of the Moon and the Field and the chapbook The Ache & The Wing. Her work has received honors including the NORward Poetry Prize from New Ohio Review, the Joy Harjo Prize and the Sherwin Howard Award. She holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University and teaches at Weber State University.

Elizabeth Jacobson, the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe and a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, recently released her third collection, There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral. Her previous book, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, won the New Measure Poetry Prize and a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. A longtime arts advocate, Jacobson directs poetry programs at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts and previously lived in Miami Beach.

Presented with support from the Jorge M. Perez Family Foundation CreARTE, the SWWIM series offers rare access to emerging and established poets in an intimate setting that underscores The Betsy’s ongoing commitment to literary arts.