Photo Credits:
Robert Reese, Niki Herd, Tara Betts, Marcus Jackson, Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbert photographed by Rachel Eliza Griffths
Nicole Sealey’s photo by Indigo Moor
Patricia Smith’s photo by Peter Dressel
Quraysh Ali Lanasana’s photo by Brent Jones
Christian Campbell’s photo by Javier Machado
Cyrus Cassells’ photo by Fabrizio Darold
L.K. Alleyne’s photo by Kevin Colton
Cave Canem: 2008
Opal Palmer Adisa, Ph. D., is an internationallyrecognized literary critic, poet, prose writer,storyteller and artist. A full professor at CaliforniaCollege of the Arts since 1992, Adisa has also taughtat several other universities.
Lauren Kizi-Ann Alleyne hails from the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Cornell University, and is currently an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Alleyne is a Cave Canem fellow whose work has been awarded prizes such as the 2003 Atlantic Monthly Student Poetry Prize, the Robert Chasen Graduate Poetry Prize at Cornell, an International Publication Prize from The Atlanta Review, and honorable mention in the 2003 Gival Press Tri-Language Poetry Contest. She has been published in journals such as Black Arts Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, The Belleview Literary Review, and The Banyan Review among others, as well as in the anthologies Growing Up Girl and Gathering Ground. She is co-editor of From the Heart of Brooklyn, a collection of undergraduate prose, poetry and drama, and her chapbook Dawn in the Kaatskills was recently published by Longshore Press.
E.J. Antonio is a Cave Canem Fellow and a Hurston WrightFellow. Her first chapbook, Every Child Knows, was published fall 2007 by the Premier Poets ChapbookSeries, and she’s a feature on the just released CD, Beauty Keeps LayingIt’s Sharp Knife Against Me: Brant Lyon and Friends. Reginald Dwayne Betts teaches poetry with the DC Creative Writing Workshop. He attends the University of Maryland and received the Holden Fellowship to attend Warren Wilson College’s MFA program. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, Crab Orchard Review, and Ninth Letter. He’s just finished his memoir, “A Question of Freedom,” which will be published by Avery Studio/Penguin in the summer of 2009.
Tara Betts teaches creativewriting at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her work has appeared innumerous anthologies and journals including Essence, Callaloo, PMSpoemsmemoirstory, OCHO and Gathering Ground.
Antoinette Brimteaches Creative Writing, World Literature, Composition and African American Studies.She earned an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Antioch University/ Los Angelesand a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Language with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Webster University. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and a Harvard University W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow(National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Institute, July 2006). She is also a recipient of the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown (July 2007). Her poetry and creative non-fiction essays have appeared in various journals, magazines and anthologies including thenewly released anthology, Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta.
Derrick Weston Brown holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. He has studied poetry under Dr. Tony Medina at Howard University, Cornelius Eady and Henry Taylor at American University, and Sharon Olds at The Squaw Valley Summer Writers Retreat. He is a former Lannan Fellow and a Cave Canem fellow. His work has appeared in such literary journals as Warpland, DrumVoices, The Columbia Review and the online journals Capital Beltway and Howard University’s Amistad. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post and New Orleans Times-Picayune newpapers and such anthologies as, When Words Become Flesh ( Mwaza Publications), Taboo Haiku (Avisson Press), and Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (University Of Michigan Press). In 2006 he released his first chapbook of poetry entitled The Unscene and has recently completed a full-length manuscript entitled Gist. He is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and currently resides in Mount Rainier, Maryland. He teaches two poetry classes at The Duke Ellington School of Performing Arts in Washington D.C. He is the Poet-In-Residence at Busboys and Poets bookstore, which is operated by the non-profit Teaching for Change.
Christian Campbell, of TheBahamas and Trinidad and Tobago, is a poet, scholar and culture worker. He read for an MPhil in English atOxford as the Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes Scholar and completed the PhD inEnglish at Duke University. He hastaught at Duke, Oxford and Franklin & Marshall College, and has publishedand presented his work in the Caribbean, the United States, Brazil, the UnitedKingdom and Switzerland. Sonia Sanchez named his manuscript of poetry, Running the Dusk, runner-up finalist for the 2005 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He iscurrently Assistant Professor of English at the University of Toronto.
Cyrus Cassells is the author of four acclaimed books of poetry: The Mud Actor, Soul Make a Path through Shouting, Beautiful Signor, and More Than Peace and Cypresses. His fifth book, The Crossed-Out Swastika, and a translation manuscript, Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas, are forthcoming. Among his honors are a Lannan Literary Award, a William Carlos Williams Award, a Pushcart Prize, two NEA grants, and a Lambda Literary Award. He is a Professor of English at Texas State University-San Marcos and has served on the faculty of Cave Canem, the African American Poets Workshop. He lives in Austin and Paris. 
Curtis L. Crisler is a VisitingAssistant Professor of Creative Writing at Indiana Unversity Purdue UniversityFort Wayne. His book Tough BoySonatas was published in 2007. He has forthcoming work in THE NINTHLETTER, Elixir, and African American Review, and he has workin numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies. He is a Cave Canem Fellow, and his work online can be found at: Poetry Midwest, muse apprentice guild (m.a.g.), Ambulant, InOur Own Words, Apples and OrangesPoetry Magazine, The Amistad, XCP: streetnotes, andPindeldyboz. 
Jarita Davis is a poet and fictionwriter who earned a B.A. in classics from Brown University and both an M.A. anda Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. Shewas the writer in residence at the Nantucket Historical Association and hasreceived fellowships from the Mellon Mayes program, Cave Canem, and Hedgebrook.In addition, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Travel Research Grant as well asNeiheisel Phi Beta Kappa Award. Her work has appeared in the Southwestern Review, Historic Nantucket, Cave CanemAnthologies, Crab OrchardReview, and Plainsongs. For more, see her website: www.jaritadavis.com.
Toi Derricotteis the author of amemoir, The Black Notebooks (1997), and four books of poetry: Tender (1997), winner of the1998 Paterson Poetry Prize, Captivity (1989), Natural Birth (1983and 2000) and Empress of the Death House (1978). She has received numerous awards,including the Distinguished Alumni Award from the New York University GraduateSchool of Arts and Science (2008), The Betty Kray Award from Poets House(2008), the Barnes & Noble Writer of the Year Award from Poets &Writers (2008), fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation (2006), theGuggenheim Foundation (2004), two fellowships in poetry from the NationalEndowment for the Arts (1985 and 1990) and two Pushcart Prizes (1989 and1998). Her memoir, The BlackNotebooks, received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Black Caucus of theAmerican Library Association Award in nonfiction, and was nominated for the PENMartha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.Derricotte’sessay, “Beginning Dialogues,” appears in The Best American Essays of 2006. Sheis the co-founder of Cave Canem, the historic first workshop/retreat forAfrican American poets, and professor of English at the University ofPittsburgh. 
Kimberly Dixon is a playwright and poet. Her theater work has received staged readings and productions at Yale University, UCLA, Crossroads Theatre Company, Plowshares Theatre Company and Strawdog Theatre Company, and her comic play The Gizzard of Brownsville was a finalist in the Theodore Ward Prize for African-American Playwrights. As a poet she has been a Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, performed as a finalist in Chicago’s Guild Complex Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards and as a featured poet in its theater/poetry “incubator” production Tour Guides, published in the international literary magazine Versal, and her poem “Narcissus” is included in the new anthology Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta! She also holds degrees in theater, psychology and Afro-American Studies from Yale, UCLA and Northwestern University.
Cornelius Eady was born inRochester, NY, in 1954. He is the author of seven books of poetry; Kartunes, (Warthog Press, 1980), Victims of the Latest DanceCraze, (Ommation Press, 1986), winner ofthe 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets, The Gathering ofMy Name, (Carnegie Mellon UniversityPress, 1991), nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, You Don’tMiss Your Water, (Henry Holt and Co.,1995), The Autobiography of a Jukebox(Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1997), Brutal Imagination (Putnam,2001), and Hardheaded Weather; Newand Selected Poems (April 2008, Putnam).He is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literature (1985), a John SimonGuggenheim Fellowship in Poetry , (1993), a Lila Wallace-Readers DigestTraveling Scholarship to Tougaloo College in Mississippi (1992-1993), a RockefellerFoundation Fellowship to Bellagio, Italy, (1993), and The Prairie SchoonerStrousse Award (1994). His work appears in many journals, magazines and theanthologies Every Shut Eye Ain’t Asleep, In Search of Color Everywhere, andThe Vintage Anthology of African American Poetry, (1750-2000) ed. Michael S. Harper. In June 1997, an adapation of YouDon’t Miss Your Water was performedat the Vineyard Theatre, in New York City. In April 1999, Running Man, a music-theatre piece co-written with jazz musician DiedreMurray was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and awarded a 1999 Obiefor best musical score and lead actor in a musical. He has taught poetry atSUNY Stony Brook, where he directed its Poetry Center, City College, SarahLawrence College, New York University, The Writer’s Voice, The 92nd St Y,The College of William and Mary, andSweet Briar College. With poet Toi Derricote, he is co-founder of Cave Canem, asummer workshop/retreat for African American poets. In January 2002, aproduction of Brutal Imagination (witha score by Diedre Murray) opened at the Vineyard Theatre, where it won the 2002Oppenheimer award for the best first play by an American Playwright. At present he is Associate Professor ofEnglish and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of NotreDame.
Aricka M. Foreman is poet, writer, and educator from Detroit, MI. Her work has appeared in anthologies The Lion Speaks: Poems for Hurricane Katrina and Black, White, & Blue in Detroit released by LeadFoot Press, as well as an audio work entitled the naked mouth. Aricka is a three time Detroit Poetry Slam finalist, a Midwest Regional Poetry Slam Champion and is currently the Co-Chairwoman for the PSI sponsored 2009 Women of the World Poetry Slam. A Cave Canem fellow, she isa Writer-In-Residence with InsideOut Literacy Arts Project.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet,writer, photographer, and painter.She is a Cave Canem Fellow and received theMFA in Creative Writingfrom Sarah Lawrence College. Some of herwork has appeared in Callaloo, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review,Comstock Review, Black Arts Quarterly, Torch, Puerto Del Sol, PMS: poem memoir story, and others.She lives in New York.
Richard Hamiltonlives in Alabama. A Cave Canem Fellow, his work has appeared in numerous print and online journals including “A” Magazine, MATTER Journal, and Cross-Cultural Poetics. He teaches creative writing at Tuskegee University. 
francine j. harris is a Cave Canemfellow and has been published in McSweeney’s “Poets Picking Poets”,Gathering of the Tribes, Voices Rising, and Gathering Ground anthologies, and hasforthcoming publications in Ninth Letter and in the anthology, To Be Leftwith the Body. She was born inDetroit, where she is awriter-in-residence at a local high school.
NikiHerd has been published in forums such as Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta!, Fromthe Web: A Global Anthology of Women’sPolitical Poetry, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Autumnal: ACollection of Elegies on compact disc, Kalliope, PMS:poemmemoirstory, 10×10.8, Xcp:Streetnotes Biannual Electronic ExhibitionSpace, and Black Issues Book Review.She has served on the board of Kore Press, an independent feminist publisherand was nominated for a Pushcart Award. Currently a Cave Canem Fellow, she wasrecently a finalist for the 2007 Astraea Emerging Lesbian Writer Award from theAstraea Lesbian Foundation for Social Justice.
Lita Hooper is a poet,photographer, and educator. Her work has appeared in several anthologies,including Crux: Conversations in Words and Images from South Africa to SouthUSA, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets LeanSouth, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social andPolitical Black Literature and Art, and TempuTumpu/walking Naked: African Women’s Poetic Self-portrait. She is the author of two chapbooks, Legacy and The Journal of Sojourner Truth, and a critical biography, Art of Work: The Art andWork of Haki Madhubuti. Her work hasalso been published in online and print journals and magazines, including poetrymidwest,Drumvoices, Essence Magazine and Pluck! She is an associate professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College and founding member of the Baobab Poetry Collective in Atlanta.
Randall Horton, originally from Birmingham, Alabama, resides inAlbany, New York. His poetry manuscript The Definition of Place was a finalist for the Main StreetRag Book Award and was published in their Editor’s Select Series in 2006. He isa former editor of WarpLand: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas (Fall 2005) andco-editor with Becky Thompson and MichaelHunter of FingernailsAcross the Chalkboard Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDs from the Black Diaspora (ThirdWorld Press, 2007). He received his undergraduate education at both HowardUniversity and The University of the District of Columbia (B.A. English). Hehas a MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry from Chicago StateUniversity. He is currently a doctoral student in Creative Writing at SUNYAlbany and a Cave Canem fellow. 
Ashaki M. Jacksonis a socialpsychologist and poet who currently resides in Southern California. She earnedan MFA-Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and has workshoppedin residence with Voices of Our Nation’s Arts (VONA), Idyllwild, and Cave Canemcommunities. Her work spans audio and print anthologies, and Black Goat Presswill publish her first manuscript, Thus Are Our Bodies, in 2009.
Marcus Jackson‘s poetryhas appeared in publications such as The New Yoker, Blood Lotus, Cave Canem Anthology 2007, Evansville Review, Heliotrope, The New Delta Reviewand Toledo Review. He received his BA from The Universityof Toledo and his MFA from New York University. He lives in New York City where he hasworked as a mover, a mailroom clerk and an adjunct lecturer. He is finishing his first collection of poems, entitled Neighborhood Register. 
Cave Canem Fellow and Affrilachian Poet, Amanda Johnstonhas performed across the country for various causes and events. Honors include a 2003 and 2004 Artists Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the 2005 Austin International Poetry Festival’s Christina Sergeyevna Award. Currently, Johnston serves on the board of directors for the National Women’s Alliance, is an ensemble member of The Austin Project Performance Company (TAPPCo) and is the founding editor of Torch: poetry, prose, and short stories by African American Women.
Alan King‘s fiction and poems have appeared in the Arabesques Review, Warpland, The Amistad, and Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS, among others. A Cave Canem fellow and Vona Alum, his work was also part of Anacostia Exposed, a collaborative exhibit with Irish photographer Mervyn Smyth that showcases the life and energy of Anacostia.
QurayshAli Lansana is author of They Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems (Third World Press, 2004) and the poetry collection SouthsideRain (Third World Press, 2000); The BigWorld, a children’s book, (Addison-Wesley,1999); and two poetry chapbooks, Greatest Hits: 1995-2005(Pudding House Publications, 2006) and cockroachchildren: corner poems and street psalms(nappyhead press, 1995). He is the editor of Glencoe/McGraw-Hill’s AfricanAmerican Literature Reader(Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2001), and I Represent and dream in yourself,which are two anthologies of literary works from Chicago’s award-winning youtharts employment program, Gallery 37(Tia Chucha Press, 1996 and 1997, respectively). He is also co-editor of Dreamof A Word: The Tia Chucha Press Poetry Anthology (Tia Chucha Press, 2006), and Role Call: A GenerationalAnthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (Third World Press, 2002). Poetry from the Masters: TheSixth Wave (Just Us Books, 2008) isforthcoming. He is Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literatureand Creative Writing at Chicago State University, where he is also AssociateProfessor of English and Creative Writing. He is also a former faculty memberof the Drama Division of The Juilliard School. Quraysh is the former AssociateEditor-Poetry for Black Issues Book Review, and sits on the Editorial Board of Tia Chucha Press. Passage, his poetry video collaboration with Kurt Heintz, won thefirst ever Image Union/Bob Award from WTTW-TV (PBS). He is the recipient of other awards, including: the 2006Securing the Future Award from ETA Creative Arts Foundation, the 2000 Poet ofthe Year Award, presented by Chicago’s Black Book Fair; the 1999 Henry BlakelyAward, presented by Gwendolyn Brooks; and the 1999 Wallace W. DouglasDistinguished Service Award, presented by Young Chicago Authors, Inc. Qurayshearned a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the Creative Writing Program at NewYork University, where he was a Departmental Fellow. He has been a literary teaching artist and curriculumdeveloper for over a decade and has led workshops in prisons, public schools,and universities in over 30 states. 
Charles H. Lynch was born inBaltimore, Maryland, and attended Kenyon College and The City College of NewYork. Since 1969 he has lived in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Gayle. Hisdoctoral dissertation at New York University was on the lives and poetry ofRobert Hayden and Gwendolyn Brooks. He teaches English at New Jersey CityUniversity. Since childhood he hasbeen intrigued by the varieties of English people of African descent speak.Many of his poems celebrate thatdispersion in sound and diction. He has been a Baha’i since 1990,and that commitment informs his artistic vision. In 2005, 2006, and 2007 heattended the Cave Canem Summer Workshop Retreat, an experience that has beeninvaluable in deepening his appreciation for how important our role as poets isin bringing forth a new understanding of how humankind can live in peace andharmony. His poetry manuscript, Graced by Singe and Shadow, ishis attempt to demarcate some of the ways we can progress towards thatcondition, acknowledging the struggles that may require personally andcollectively.
Adrian Matejka is a graduate of the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard, Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and Pleiades among other journals and anthologies. His first collection of poems, The Devil’s Garden, was published by Alice James Books. His follow-up collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and will be published by Penguin Books in 2009.
Jamaal May is a poet, producer andrecording artist from Detroit, MI. He has been awarded an InternationalPublication Prize by Atlanta Review anda Young Poets Rising jury prize from Broadside Press. His work has appeared in VerseDaily, The MacGuffin and The Main Street Rag among other magazines and anthologies. Jamaal is a MidwestRegional Poetry Slam Champion, two-time Detroit Poetry Slam Champion andtwo-time Individual World Poetry Slam finalist. Production and engineeringcredits include, The Last Poets, Dead Prez, and The Four Tops. Jamaal holds adegree in Studio Engineering, is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a writer inresidence with the Inside Out Literary Arts Project.
Writer and folklorist Colleen J. McElroy received a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, where she is Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing. Winner of the Before Columbus American Book Award, she also has received two Fulbright Fellowships; two National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships; and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to the Bellagio Center in Italy. Published and anthologized widely, McElroy’s latest collection of poetry is Sleeping with the Moon. 
David Mills has had poems published in Osbidian II, Nuyorican Aloud, In Defense of Mumia, In the Tradition, and Squaw Valley Review. He writes book reviews for The Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Post, and Village Voice. His one-person show of Langston Hughes was voted the #4 show nationwide by the American Library Association for young adult programming. He has recorded his poetry on RCA records and won a BRIO award for poetry in 1993.
Marilyn Nelsonis the author of Carver: A Life in Poems, Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem, and A Wreath for Emmett Till. Her honors include two Pushcart Prizes, two NEA creativewriting fellowships, and a fellowship from the J.S. Guggenheim MemorialFoundation. Her new book, The Freedom Business, poems based on the narrative of the life of VentureSmith, is due out in fall, 2008. Nelson is a professor emerita of English atthe University of Connecticut and founder and director of Soul MountainRetreat, a small writers’ colony.
Carl Phillipsis the author of ten books of poems, most recently Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems 1986-2006 and Speak Low, forthcoming in the spring of 2009.His awards and honors include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Award in Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets, to which he was elected a Chancellor in 2006. Phillips teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.
Iain Haley Pollock lives in Philadelphia and teaches English at Chestnut Hill Academy. He received an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University and is a member of the Cave Canem Workshop for African American poets. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Boston Review and Callaloo.
Artist and writer Khadijah Queenholds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her work has appearedor is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies including new ohioreview, Poemmemoirstory and Fire and Ink: A Social Action Anthology(University of Arizona Press 2009). Her debut collection of poetry is Conduit(Black Goat/Akashic Books 2008). Khadijah is a graduate fellow in studio art atthe University of South Florida. Visit her website: www.imagesound.tk.
RobertR. Reeseis a graduate of Santa Clara University with a BA in EnglishLiterature. His poems haveappeared in the Monterey Journal, AuthorizingHumanity, The Voice, Santa Clara Review,and in other journals. He is aCave Canem Fellow.
Ed Roberson (b.1939 in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania) is author of seven books of poetry. His collection Voices Cast Outto Talk Us In was a winner of the IowaPoetry Prize; his book Atmosphere Conditions was a winner of the National Poetry Series and wasnominated for the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Award. He is arecipient of the Lila Wallace Writers’ Award and the Poetry Society ofAmerica’s Shelley Memorial Award. He graduated from the University ofPittsburgh, 1970, where while an undergrad research assistant in Limnology, hetraveled across Canada through Alaska, Kodiak and Afognak Islands and laterBermuda with research expeditions. He has climbed mountains in the Peruvian andEcuadorian Andes, motorcycled across the U.S. and traveled in West Africa.Retired from Rutgers University, Ed Roberson currently lives in Chicago wherehe has taught classes and workshops at Columbia College Chicago, been VisitingArtist at Northwestern University and is currently teaching in the Poetry andPoetics Program at the University of Chicago.
Kamau Rucker (Richmond, VA) is ateacher and singer/songwriter. Additional work includes play writing. He is aMaster of Fine Arts candidate in creative writing at George Mason Universityand a Cave Canem Fellow. Recent publication credits include: Six LittleThings, Cairn, Ruah, and Triplopia.
Metta Sáma lives and teaches in southern Indiana. Her poems and reviews have appeared in hercircleezine.com, Proud Flesh, Letters to the World, and other magazines.
Nicole Sealey is a writer, editor, and poet. Her interviews with acclaimed writersSapphire and Nikki Giovanni can be found in Artists and Influence: Volume XXVand Mosaic literary magazine, respectively. In May 2008, she was selected to participate in the 13th annual Minority Writers Seminar in Nashville, Tennessee. She is the Readings/Workshops and Writers Exchange Program Coordinator at Poets & Writers, Inc. and a Cave Canem fellow whose poems have appeared in a number of print and online journals. She lives in New York City.
Evie Shockley is the author of ahalf-red sea (2006) and a poetry chapbook,The Gorgon Goddess (2001), bothpublished by Carolina Wren Press. Her work appears or is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies,including Ecotone, No Tell Motel, The Southern Review, Pluck! The Journal ofAffrilachian Arts and Culture, PMS:poemmemoirstory, Studio, Tuesday: An ArtProject, and The Ringing Ear: BlackPoets Lean South. In 2007 she guest edited “~QUEST~”: aspecial issue of MiPOesias featuringthe work of contemporary African American poets; she is presently serving as aguest editor of jubilat. Shockley is at work on a book-lengthstudy of race and innovation in African American poetry, supported byfellowships from the ACLS and the Schomburg Center for Research in BlackCulture. She teaches AfricanAmerican literature and creative writing at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. 
Kevin Simmondsis a writer andmusician from New Orleans. His latest music/poetry collaboration, HOPE,with poet Kwame Dawes is at livehopelove.com.His writing has recently appeared in 42 Opus, Salt Hill and theanthology The Ringing Ear. He livesin San Francisco.
Chicago native Patricia Smith is the author of five books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a book of poems chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection, winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. Teahouse was also voted the Best Poetry Book of 2006 by About.com. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly and many other journals, and has been performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Poets Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam’s Poetry International, the Aran Islands International Poetry and Prose Festival, the Bahia Festival, the Schomburg Center , the Sorbonne in Paris and and on tour in Germany, Austria and Holland. In addition to her poetry, Smith is also the author of the groundbreaking history Africans in America and the children’s book Janna and the Kings, winner of a Lee & Low Books New Voices Award. She is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. In 2006, during a ceremony at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, Smith was voted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. Currently, she is working on the young adult novel The Journey of Willie J, a verse memoir entitled Shoulda Been Jimmie Savannah and a Blood Dazzler dance/theater collaboration with Urban Bush Women choreographer Paloma McGregor. She teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.
Christina Springer is a textartist who uses poetry, dance, theatre, film and other visual expressions. Cave Canem helped her hone her voices. As an Outreach Artist for theHistoric Royal Palaces, she delivered four projects with youth:"Rapping On Walls," "Black Birds & Bars," "Bling& Beheadings" at the Tower Of London and "Dragon DrapD’Or" at Hampton Court Palace. She has also taught creative writingat CityLit College and The University of East London. Recent dance-theatrescripts include: "Living Ancestry" and "Kikombe Cha Umoja: AKwanzaa Myth" produced by Umoja African Arts Company and "The SploogeFactory" produced by Composer’s Collaborative. Poemshave appeared in: Gathering Ground: A Cave Canem Reader, Saints Of Hysteria,The Complete Idiots Guide To Slam Poetry CD, Torch Literary Journal, Janus Head, Femspec, and Callaloo. As a performance poet and longest reigning Pittsburgh Poetry Slam Champion,Springer coached the Pittsburgh Poetry Slam Team to the semi-finals at theNational Poetry Slam in 2002.
Cedric Tillman was born inRockingham, NC and studied English at the University of North Carolina atCharlotte. In 2004, he received anMFA in Creative Writing from American University, where he worked with poetssuch as Cornelius Eady, Henry Taylor, and Myra Sklarew. Cedric has been a semifinalist in TheNation‘s “Discovery” contest and his workappears in Inspirit, Folio, Crosscut& both the 2006 & 2007 editions of Kakalak: An Anthology of CarolinaPoets. Cedric lives in Charlotte with his wife and daughter.
Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbertis a writer, Cave CanemFellow (2007), journalist, workshop facilitator and playwright living in SeattleWashington. She is author of the poetry book, Baring My Soul, and the recipient of the 2004 San DiegoJournalism Press Club Award for the article “War Torn.” She is writer,co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST? Documentary (2007): adocumentary about the views of women regarding breast and body image. Herpoetry, fiction and nonfiction have been published in, Alehouse Journal (2009),Women. Period. (Spinsters Ink, 2008), Torch, Clamor Magazine, Checkthe Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets& Emcees (Nominated for the 2007 NAACPAward), I Woke Up and Put My Crown On: 76 Voices of African American Women, Essence Magazine,Number One Magazine, TImbooktu, Chicken Bones Journal, The Nubian Chronicles, Hair Piecez, San Diego City Beat, The Pitch Weekly, Hair Piecez Anthologyand The Source Magazine.
QianaTownsreceived a MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University and isa 2007 recipient of the Cave Canem fellowship. She holds a MA fromCentral Michigan University where she served as poetry editor for the onlineliterary journal Temenos. Her work hasappeared or is forthcoming in The Nubian Chronicle, The Mochila Review,Prick of the Spindle and Pindeldyboz.
Nagueyalti Warren is a poet, CaveCanem fellow and member of the Atlanta-based Baobab Poetry Collective. In the daylight hours she teachesAfrican American literature and poetry at Emory University in the Department ofAfrican American Studies. Her poetry has appeared in Essence Magazine,Obsidian II, The African American Review,and Gathering Ground, the TenthAnniversary Cave Canem Anthology. She is the winner of the 2008 Naomi LongMadgett Poetry Prize for her collection, Margaret circa 1834-1858.
Afaa Michael Weaver, formerly known as Michael S.Weaver, was born in 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland, to working class parents. Heattended public schools and graduated as a National Merit finalist at the ageof sixteen. After two years at the University of Maryland, he entered the worldof factory life alongside his father and uncles and remained a factory workerfor fifteen years. These years were a literary apprenticeship during which hewrote and published poetry, short fiction, and freelance journalism. Duringthat time he also started 7th Son Press and Blind Alleys, a literary journal. His first book of poetry, Water Song,was published in 1985 as part of the Callaloo series. He received a NEAfellowship for poetry six months after signing the contract for the collectionsand left factory life to accept admission into Brown University’s graduatewriting program on a full university fellowship, where he completed the M.A.with a focus on theater and playwriting. Concurrently, he completed his B.A. inLiterature in English through Excelsior College. In 1998, he wasnamed a Pew fellow. Weaver has taught in Taiwan at Taiwan NationalUniversity as a Fulbright Scholar and has traveled in China. In Beijingin 2005, he received a gold friendship medal from the Chinese Writers’Association. He began studying Chinese formally in 2002, and from 2004 to2005 lived in Taiwan where he studied for eight months at the Taipei LanguageInstitute. At Simmons College where he teaches, Weaver convenes aninternational festival of contemporary Chinese poetry, with poets attendingfrom Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. His tenth collection of poetry is ThePlum Flower Dance/ poems 1985 to 2005 (University of Pittsburgh Press,2007). In 2008 he won a Pushcart prize for his poem "AmericanIncome," which was published by Poetry magazine in 2007 and isincluded in The Plum Flower Dance.
Marcus Wickeris a first year Cave Canem Fellow from AnnArbor, Michigan, as well as an MFA student in creative writing at IndianaUniversity, where he holds a Yusef Komunyakaa Fellowship. He was the winner of the 2007 Hughes, Diop,Knight Award and his poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in NinthLetter, Juked and WarpLand.
Ian Williams divides his timebetween Massachusetts, where he teaches American literature at FitchburgState College, and Ontario, where he edits Misunderstandings Magazine. His writing has appeared in The AntigonishReview, Carousel, Contemporary Verse 2,Descant, Pebble Lake Review, andMargie. He has held residences orfellowships from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Cave Canem, andwas a scholar at the National Humanities Center Summer Institute forLiterary Study.
Phillip Williams is a Chicago,Illinois native and received his BA in English from the University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign. A Cave Canemfellow, he is working on a manuscript of poetry tentatively entitled Filamentof Souls. Phillip currently resides in Marietta, Georgia. 
Sharon Dennis Wyeth is a CaveCanem Fellow. She is the award-winning author of over fifty books for youngreaders. Wyeth is a visiting Associate Professor of Creative Writing at HollinsUniversity.