B. Metzger Sampson

B. Metzger Sampson is the Executive Director of the Chicago Poetry Center and has worked in public arts programming, nonprofit, and education for over 15 years. Through a decade of rebuilding CPC, the organization has transformed into a values-driven, equity-focused arts organization with a strong financial model and cash reserve. B. is particularly interested in budgetary structures that foreground equity for artists, teaching artists, and non-profit staff, and in consensus-based leadership models that engage a large community of stakeholders in building mission, values, and policies that shape the organization through collective input and drive meaningful community engagement. Interviews with and B. regarding this work can be found on POETRY, NBC, and NPR. After many years on Chicago’s Lit 50 list, they are now in the Lit 50 Hall of Fame. Their work has recently included co-curating an exhibit on CPC’s founding and first 50 years and the production of a poetry web series. B. is also a writer, visual artist, and frequent collaborator. Other roles include consulting on organizational transformation, equity and inclusion at MMGE, founding Dear Navigator Literary Journal (SAIC), and 20 years of teaching everyone from age 8 to 80, in artist workshops nationally and internationally, higher ed institutions including SAIC and Dominican University, and CPS classrooms across Chicago.