Camden, NJ - We Still Here: Present-Moment Quilt Poems / Quilt,  Spell, Incantation

Instructor: M. Nzadi Keita

Application Period: Wednesday, February 4, 2026, 12:00 AM ET- Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 11:59 PM ET

Workshop Sessions: Weekly on Wednesdays, March 18, March 28, April 1, April 8, April 15, April 22, April 29, May 6, May 13

Workshop Location & Reading: La Unique African American Books & Cultural Center

Cave Canem’s workshops are rare opportunities for poets of all experience levels to work with and learn directly from accomplished poets in Cave Canem’s network. Limited to small enrollment groups, these multiple-session workshops offer rigorous instruction, careful critique, and an introduction to the work of influential poets. Workshops are tuition-free and free to apply.

For Spring 2026, Cave Canem is excited to welcome poet, essayist, and scholar M. Nzadi Keita (Cave Canem Fellow, 1999) as the facilitator of our Camden, NJ Regional Workshop, We Still Here: Present-Moment Quilt Poems / Quilt, Spell, Incantation.

About We Still Here

We are living at a time when hostility seems to escalate and draw closer with each breath. Through this work, poets will make poems that hold us in awareness of our treasures, poems that affirm our power to persist, by reminding us of “the present moment” as [extolled] by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Holding the artistry of Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, Faith Ringgold, and Bernice Reagon in mind, participants will consider quilts, spells, and incantations as emblems of some singular moments. The workshop will include discussion, prompts, periodic reading in and outside of the workshop, and drafting poems for collective commentary. Poets will strive, through this process, to distill affirmative, restorative power from the poems to themselves. Not just about writing sonnets, this workshop about forms offers writers the opportunity to more deeply engage questions of structure, sound, and innovation. Rigorous and playful, Pattern/Constraint/Sound helps writers take such questions up, exploring and then exploding forms inside and out. Poets will develop their prosodic chops, fortifying not only their writing but also their understanding of why we have certain habits, blocks, and technical mojos. Poets will try their hands at forms old and new from around the globe, develop their own new forms, and experiment with writing formats outside of poetry (including tables, questionnaires, prescriptions, and more!). 

Eligibility

Any adult (18 or older) Black poet of any experience level who is a resident of the city or theimmediate surrounding area may apply to participate in the workshop. Cave Canem defines Black poets as any poet who identifies as a member of the African Diaspora.   

Guidelines

• Applicants must submit five original poems and a short cover letter through the Submittable application.
• One application per poet will be accepted. 
• Please note that all workshop participants are required to take a post-workshop survey after the conclusion of the program. Photos of participants may be taken throughout the workshops and reading.     

About M. Nzadi Keita

M. Nzadi Keita is a first-generation northerner and a proud ’99-’01 Cave Canem alumna. Her third book, Migration Letters: Poems, reflects on her background as a Black working-class woman in Philadelphia, originally Lenapehoking land.  In Brief Evidence of Heaven: Poems from the life of Anna Murray Douglass, Keita uses persona to unveil Frederick Douglass’s first wife.  Her essays and poems have been published widely, appearing in anthologies including the forthcoming Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Motown Poetry Revue, and in journals such as Obsidian, Mid-American Review, Raising Mothers, and About Place. While parenting sons, Keita worked as a Professor of English, a nonprofit administrator, and a freelance journalist.  She was an adviser to the award-winning documentary, BadddDDD Sonia Sanchez, and has consulted for the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Foundation and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Keita is a Pew Fellow in Poetry and a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award recipient.