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June Bankston
My name is June, and I am a writer, poet, and cultural arts program coordinator. I was born and raised on the east side of San Antonio. My grandmother’s house in Lake Side was the first home I ever knew. I grew up watching my mom and dad organize poetry and music showcases across the city. My upbringing shaped my focus on creating spaces where poetry can inspire others to express themselves freely.
In May 2024, I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, earning several awards and scholarships for my poetry and nonfiction writing. My work has been featured in local poetry anthologies such as 11 Austin Poets by Udumbara Press and Drifting Off on a Branch by the Knead Art Collective. During my time in Austin, I was awarded the 2024 Elevate Artist Grant, which provided municipal grant funding to organize events that spotlight peer artists in the community. Currently, I am organizing the second annual Free 2 Be Festival in Austin, a two-day event centering the works of Black and Latino artists across film, poetry, and music. My commitment to poetry as a craft is rooted in community and liberation.
Resume (PDF)
Work Samples (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Poet; Performing Arts: Spoken Word Artist
Artist Medium: Audio/Sound
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
As a poet and program coordinator, my work is rooted in a deep spirit of creative inquiry. In everything I do, I ask: How can we be more compassionate human beings to one another?
Poetry, for me, is a means of experiencing my feelings without confining them to a single form of articulation. Joy and pain arrive in complex, unpredictable ways—a sense of peace when others are in pain, a sense of direction when the world is in chaos, an inner knowing when everything's contrived to cause mass confusion. These paradoxes do not cancel each other out; they shape the way I move through the world. I have learned to hold them all at once, to exist in the in-between, where clarity is not about certainty but about presence.
My grounding in research allows me to make broader connections between individual and collective realities, examining the racial, gendered, and class constructions that shape our world and our possibilities within it. Through my work in program coordination—organizing events like the Free 2 Be Festival and the Voter & Voices Block Party in Austin, Texas—I bring the community into a shared space where research and poetic fabulation meet. I cultivate a focused, intentional imagination, one capacious enough to dream of futures where we can not only survive but thrive together.