CAVE CANEM WELCOMES DAWN LUNDY MARTIN AND JANET SARBAUGH TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Bringing years of creative and philanthropic experience, the two new board members signal an exciting period of growth as Cave Canem lays the foundation for its future.
BROOKLYN, NY – Cave Canem has invited two exciting new members, including poet, essayist, and Cave Canem Fellow Dawn Lundy Martin (1998) and Janet Sarbaugh, former Vice President, Creativity Programs at The Heinz Endowments, to their Board. Both Lundy Martin and Sarbaugh have demonstrated an extensive commitment to leveling the philanthropic playing field as well as stewarding the work of under-resourced and under-represented groups.Their addition signals Cave Canem’s continued pursuit of creating a sustainable environment for Black poets. “Cave Canem has long been my heart’s love in the literary landscape, and I’m happy to lend my learnings over the years to the board, the mission, and the growth of the organization at this unique moment in its trajectory,” said Lundy Martin.
“From the moment I met Toi Derricotte, I knew that Cave Canem was something remarkable. I hope very much to contribute to its growing success,” said Sarbaugh.
Learn more about our new board members below:
Dawn Lundy Martin (she/they) is an American poet, essayist, and memoirist, and author of five books of poems: Instructions for the Lovers (2024); Good Stock Strange Blood, winner of the 2019 Kingsley Tufts Award; Life in a Box is a Pretty Life; DISCIPLINE; and, A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering (Cave Canem Prize 2006). Their nonfiction can be found in n+1, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Best American Essays 2019 and 2021, and elsewhere. Dawn was a 2022 United States Artist Fellow, the inaugural Toi Derricotte Endowed Chair in English at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Founding Director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics. She is now Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College. Her memoir, When a Person Goes Missing, is forthcoming from Pantheon Books.
Both a Cave Canem fellow and faculty member, Dawn works in collectivity and is the co-founder of several organizations and artists collectives including HowDoYouSayYamInAfrican? (“Yam Collective”), Black Took Collective, and Third Wave Foundation (now Third Wave Fund). From her experience on the Third Wave’s Executive Committee, Dawn co-edited The Fire This Time: Young Activist and the New Feminism (2004), which uses a gender lens to describe and theorize young activist work in the U.S. Dawn continues her activism by working to provide BIPOC gender justice analytical frameworks to assist philanthropic organizations in strategic philanthropy to level the playing field and animate social justice reforms.
Janet Sarbaugh served as the Vice President of the Creativity Program for The Heinz Endowments until her retirement in December 2022. Under Sarbaugh’s direction, The Heinz Endowments’ Creativity program focused on Creative Artists and Organizations, Creative Places, and Creative Learning, and distributed approximately $16 million annually. Prior to her appointment as Vice President, Ms. Sarbaugh served as Director of Arts and Culture Programs at The Heinz Endowments, and as a program officer at the Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments.
She holds a B.A. from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia; a M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and a Masters Degree in Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University. Ms. Sarbaugh has served on the boards of Chorus America, Americans for the Arts, Grantmakers in the Arts, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania and Leadership Pittsburgh. Janet currently serves on the boards of City of Asylum and the Pittsburgh Symphony. She was named Pittsburgh’s number one cultural force by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2003. In 2011, she received the Greater Pittsburgh YWCA’s Tribute to Women Leadership Award in Arts & Culture.
Cave Canem Board President and Fellow Tyehimba Jess (1997) added, “On behalf of Cave Canem, I want to express our appreciation and excitement as we welcome Dawn and Janet onto the Board of Directors. As we near three decades as an organization, their contributions will help us shepard Cave Canem into a new era.”
To learn more about Cave Canem’s Board of Directors, please visit our website.