Fall 2022 Season Announcement
In the last two and a half years, it seems for some that time has stood still or, for others, disappeared. Our individual and collective memory for the duration of a global pandemic is locked in a kind of stasis, protecting us from the kaleidoscopic effects of loss—in Yusef Komunyakaa’s words “[n]othing / but the white odor of absence.” Still, there was Poetry!
And because there was Poetry, Cave Canem was at work: a virtual presence bringing readings and conversations into peoples’ homes; a place for poets to turn when they could not write; celebrating our 25th anniversary and the necessary labor of our Founders, Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady; providing emergency funds for poets who could write but required extra resources; and bringing new poetries into the literary landscape with our Prizes.
That work does not cease and it is a privilege to offer you the opportunity to gather around the hearth of poetry again, in-person, together, to enjoy a season of programming that is sure to remind you of what it is that Black poets do, how it sustains us in times of crises and how it renews us in the aftermath.
– Dante Micheaux
Director of Programs
Fall 2022 Programs
September 20
In Conversation: Simone White & The Friend
6:00PM – 7:30PM
The New School (livestreamed)
A conversation featuring contemporary poets Simone White and The Friend in discussion on their new works, shared aesthetic interests, and the climate of American poetry.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Co-presented by The New School Creative Writing Program.
October 3 – December 5
Regional Workshop (NYC): “all swirl and pivot:” African-American
Sonnets with Reginald Harris
Mondays 6:00PM – 9:00PM
Cave Canem Foundation
The Temps, all swirl and pivot, conjured schemes. –Patricia Smith, “Motown Sonnet”
For nearly 800 years, the little song of the sonnet has enticed poets into its web. The form continues to be used to engage with tradition and work through issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In this workshop we will look at how African American poets have used, and played with, the form. We will read a wide range of sonnets from historical to contemporary, traditional and experimental, single poems to sonnet sequences and crowns, with extended looks at two practitioners of the “American Sonnet,” Wanda Coleman and Terrance Hayes. Weekly writing exercises will aid in generating our own sonnets as we search for the freedom that can be found in formal constraint.
This program is supported by a grant from the Jerome Foundation. This program is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation; and the Consolidated Edison Company of New York.
October 22
Cave Canem Presents Anticenter: Black Poetic Composition at the Margins
with Quenton Baker, Chekwube Danladi & Anastacia-Reneé
11am
Dodge Poetry Festival
Newark Museum
Billy Johnson Auditorium
Despite the great flourishings of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement, Black poets and other poets of color have, for the majority of American literary history, worked at the margins. With an increase in representation in publishing, across national, eminent literary prizes and several Poets Laureate of color, some have argued that a reckoning of sorts has occurred or is in the process of doing so. What are we to make of the poets whose practice has remained outside the center or been neglected by it? Baker, Danladi and Anastacia-Reneé, approach the question each from their own distinctive compositional perspectives.
November 30
Cave Canem Prize Reading: Courtney Faye Taylor & Aracelis Girmay
7:00PM – 8:30PM
American Negro Theater
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Courtney Faye Taylor reads Concentrate (Graywolf) selected by Rachel Eliza Griffiths as winner of the 2021 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Aracelis Girmay author of Kingdom Animalia (BOA) will join Taylor in discussion about Concentrate, writing practices, and poetic traditions.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
December 5
Final Fall Regional Workshop Reading
6:00PM – 9:00PM
Cave Canem Foundation
The Final Reading will showcase fresh, published, and beloved poems written by participants of Reginald Harris’ Fall Regional workshop.
This program is supported by a grant from the Jerome Foundation. This program is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation; and the Consolidated Edison Company of New York.
December 8
First Books: Ama Codjoe & Maya Marshall
6:00PM – 7:00PM
The New School (livestreamed)
Ama Codjoe and Maya Marshall read and discuss their debut collections, Bluest Nude (Milkweed Press) and All the Blood Involved in Love (Haymarket), respectively.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Co-presented by The New School Creative Writing Program.