Wonderful evening in honor of the GREAT Edna Lewis. An excellent meal prepared by great chefs—all in good company and for a good cause. Black foodways are the center of our culture and we owe a great debt to their practitioners.
Postscript: Chef @chefadriennecheatham ‘s Carmelized Apple “Cake” was SO good, the evidence is in its absence😋
Over the next two weekends, join Cave Canem’s Artistic Director Dante Micheaux for an engaging workshop, “Making Wisdom: a poetry workshop for elders.”
In “I Give In To An Old Desire”, poet Toi Derricotte, writes “I lost so much / of the world’s beauty”. How can those in our society with the most life experience, our elders, help ensure that this does not happen, that the world’s beauty is preserved? The objective of this workshop is for each participant to complete a single poem that instills an aspect of their life or a lesson learned that they do not want to be forgotten. Participants will read the late work of poets—including Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, Derek Walcott and Jay Wright—to explore their strategies for capturing in poems what their observation finds most useful to commit to cultural memory. For more details, eligibility, and guidelines, email [email protected].
April 25, April 26, May 2 and May 3
1-4 PM ET
234 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York, 14850
“Making Wisdom: a poetry workshop for elders” is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This activity is made possible by a grant provided by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies in partnership with E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.
Read a conversation between writers Jay Bernard, Dante Micheaux, and Oluwaseun Olayiwola – which took place live at Cambridge University in late 2025 – on TRANSFIGURATIONS: COLLECTED POEMS (Penguin Classics, 2025), a landmark volume containing all eight major poetry works by the legendary Black American poet, playwright, and polymath, Jay Wright.
Together, they trace critical, audience, and reader perceptions of Wright’s work over time, as well as why Wright has been historically overlooked in the global literary sphere in comparison to contemporaries like Wole Soyinka, plus more on Wright’s poetics.
The conversation is interspersed with two of Wright’s poems from the volume, as well as several other excerpts and fragments.
Read now at the link in bio
#jaywright #africanamericanliterature #blackwriters #blackliterature #poetry
In this episode, host @padraigotuama brings us “Theologies for Korah”, a rich and rollicking poem by Dante Micheaux ( @ amorousshepherd ). Written on the occasion of an infant’s baptism, it’s anything but baby talk or bland instruction. Religious figures, rites, and symbols are proffered, not as liturgy or lore to be swallowed whole, eyes shut, but as people, stories, and ideas that cry out to be seen, played with, and engaged with.
Listen for yourself, wherever you stream podcasts.
#poetry #poems #poetrycommunity #contemplation #podcast #meditation #writing #translation #classics
Join prize-winning poet and scholar, Jericho Brown, and Cave Canem's Artistic Director, Dante Micheaux, for an intimate reading of select works from "The Selected Shepherd" (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024), followed by a conversation on the retrospective of the important and sometimes controversial Black, gay poet, Reginald Shepherd, and a book singing.
This program is hosted in partnership with The Center. RSVP in-person at the link 🔗 in bio
The Center
February 12, 2025, 7-8:30 PM ET
208 W 13th St
New York, NY 10011
Took a quarter of a century but Jay Wright’s TRANSFIGURATIONS now has a UK edition.🎊
Prepare Lilliputians, Gulliver is here!
🖼️ "Eyes" (2022) by Sherman Beck
✨Fahad Al-Amoudi, Associate Editor @penguinukbooks ✨
