Luis Rodriguez Official Poet Laureate of Los Angeles; Poet novelist journalist critic and columnist.
Luis Rodriguez saw his own way out of poverty and despair in the barrio of East LA and successfully broke free from the years of violence and desperation he spent as an active gang member. Achieving s... Read More
Nikki Giovanni Poet, Educator & Best-Selling Author
Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943. Although she grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, she and her sister returned to Knoxville each summer to visit their grandparents. Ni... Read More
Ocean Vuong Award-Winning Poet, Novelist and Essayist Known for Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016 winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize the Whiting Award the Thom Gunn A... Read More
Kevin Young Distinguished Poet National Book Award Finalist
Kevin Young is the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture recently named a National Historic Landmark and Poetry Editor of the New Yorker. He is the writer of thirteen books of... Read More
Amanda Seales Entertainer, TV Personality and Self-Help Commentator
Amanda Seales is an American entertainer. Aside from her solo career, she was also a touring member of the musical group Floetry. Since 2017, she has starred in the HBO comedy series Insecure. Seales... Read More
Warsan Shire Award-Winning Poet & Author of Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
Warsan Shire is a writer and essayist. Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, her presentation handout, was delivered in 2011 and has now become a Bestselling Book of Poetry. In 2013, she received the... Read More
Brittney Grimes Writer, Poet and Editor
Brittney Grimes is a poet, published author, writer, model and motivational speaker. Her first book, "Poetry For A Child By A Child," was followed by "The Poetry For A Child By A Child Workbook," "Ice... Read More
Robert Haas Former Poet Laureate of the United States
Robert Hass is a renowned American poet, critic, and translator known for his clarity of expression, concision, and use of imagery drawn from everyday life. He has been described as a "musical, descri... Read More
Nikky Finney National Book Award-Winning Poet
"So—you can write pretty," Toni Cade Bambara tells the twenty-one-year-old Nikky Finney during a monthly writing circle that Bambara held in her Atlanta home during the 1980's. "But what else can your... Read More
Nancy Morejon Cuban poet, critic, and essayist
Nancy Morejón is the best known and most widely translated woman poet of post-revolutionary Cuba. Born in 1944 in Havana to a militant dock worker and a trade-unionist seamstress, Morejón graduated fr... Read More