Jennifer Bartell Boykin is the Poet Laureate of the City of Columbia, South Carolina. She received an MFA and MLIS from the University of South Carolina. She is the author ofTraveling Mercy (Finishing Line Press, 2023) and her second book Only Believe (The Word Works, 2024) won the 2023 Hilary Tham Capital Collection Prize. An alumna of Agnes Scott College, Jennifer is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow and is a school librarian.