Application period: Jan 13 - Feb 17, 2025

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.

Methodic Madness: Poems of (Re) Memory 

Instructor: Karma Mayet Johnson

In this generative writing workshop we’ll delve into moments we’ve experienced as unspeakable, whether for their subtlety, their joy or for their grief—and thus address the challenges of (re) membering ourselves through language. As we continue to reemerge from the metamorphic cycle of recent years, we’ll cultivate community with our fellow poets, in the Cave Canem tradition of forging home from a mixture of rigor and love. We’ll read the poems of Evie Shockley, G. E. Patterson, Lucille Clifton, Tim Seibles, and others. Particular attention will be paid to the intersection of meticulous page-craft and the linguistics of intuition. Participants will draft and workshop a new poem each week. The workshop will culminate in a public reading.

Workshops take place March 24, 31, April 7, 14, 21, 28, May 5, 12,  and 19, 2025.

The culminating public reading takes place May 27, 2025

Karma Mayet is a transdisciplinary practitioner working in literature, music, and theater, with directors from Robert Wilson to Bill T. Jones, and with musicians including Lizz Wright, Meshell Ndegeocello, and The Roots.  Karma is composer/librettist of  Indigo, a Blues opera. Her poems have appeared in Nocturnes: (re)view of the literary arts, Cave Canem’s Gathering Ground, Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, and elsewhere. 

Her work has been supported by TheField, the D.C. Humanities Council, and the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund (for
 Fiction). Karma's innovative play, Race Card, was lauded as 'powerful, political theater' by the New York Times. She is based on Lenape land in Brooklyn, New York and originally from Chicago, of Mississippi heritage. As a practitioner of Sacred Rootwork, she shares applied indigenous healing modalities within social justice movement spaces. She is a co-founder of the Wind & Warrior Institute for Liberatory Healing. 

A Cave Canem Fellow since 1998, she was the Inaugural Toi Derricotte Fellow at Ucross in Wyoming in 2020. She is deeply interested in synaesthesia, improvisation and the electromagnetics of color and sound, the metaphysics of Funk, the effects of digital media on mitochondria, and the poetics inherent in such explorations.

 

Eligibility

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

Application period: Jan 13 - Feb 19, 2025

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.

The Matter of the Mask: Pushing the Boundaries of Persona Poetry
 

“He wears a mask just to cover the raw flesh, a rather ugly brother with flows that’s gorgeous.” – MF DOOM

“Wearing the mask gives you the freedom to become whoever you want.” – MF DOOM

“The more my mask becomes a lens on the world, the more power it takes on.” LeiKeli47

In this workshop we will explore the transformative power of persona poetry on the author and the audience. Over ten weeks we will explore the use of persona poetry in the guise of established poetic forms such as haiku, cento, sonnets and more, while drawing inspiration from and exploring the boundary pushing voices of Ai, Tim Seibles, Patricia Smith, Stacey Lynn Brown, and Oliver de la Paz. We will not only engage in deep introspection but also establish a spirit of play as we push the boundaries of this form. This workshop invites participants to embody, challenge, and reinvent voices and identities. Each three-hour session builds toward a public reading where you will share your creations in front of a live audience. Join us in discovering the limitless possibilities of the persona poem.

Eligibility

Any adult (18 or older) Black poet of any experience level who is a resident of the city or immediate 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.
   

Derrick Weston Brown holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University and is a graduate of the Cave Canem and VONA summer workshops. He has received fellowships and scholarships to attend The Community of Writers and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He was the recipient of an individual artist grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and was awarded the E. Lynn Harris Impact Award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2023. 

His work has been published in such publications as Racebaitr, Colorlines and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His work has been widely  anthologized in such collections as; The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics and Superhero Poetry, A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters and Poems for and About One Mr. Yusef Komunyakaa, . His first poetry collection Wisdom Teeth was released in 2011 on PM Press. His second collection of poetry entitled, On All Fronts, was released with two other poetry chapbooks in a series from Upper Rubber Boot Press in 2019. He is full-time Creative Writing faculty of the Cinematic Arts and Media Production (C.A.M.P.) department at The Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

 

About the Angela Jackson Prize

Since 2009, Cave Canem has collaborated with Northwestern University Press offer a prize for an exceptional second collection by a Black from the African diaspora. Past recipients include Vievee Francis, Reginald Harris and Jonathan Moody. The prize is offered every other year to celebrate and publish works of lasting cultural value and literary excellence.

In light of Angela Jackson’s innumerable contributions to poetry, Black literary communities and in recognition of her tenure as Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois, the prize has been renamed this year in her honor. Ms. Jackson will also serve as this year’s judge.

Award

Winner receives $1,000, publication by Northwestern University Press, and 15 copies of their book

Eligibility

All Black authors of published, original collections of poems written in English by Black poets who have had one full-length book of poetry published by a professional press. Cave Canem defines Black poets as any poet who identifies as a member of the African Diaspora. 

Black authors of chapbooks and self-published books with a maximum print run of 500 may apply. Simultaneous submission to other book awards should be noted: immediate notice upon winning such an award is required. Winner agrees to be present in the continental United States at their own expense shortly after the book is published in order to participate in promotional reading(s).

Exclusions

Current or former students, colleagues, employees, family members and close friends of the judge; current or former employees and members of the board of Cave Canem Foundation or Northwestern University Press; and authors who have published a book or have a book under contract with Northwestern University Press are ineligible.

If any of the selected authors fall under the above exclusions, they will be disqualified and a replacement will be chosen from among the finalists. As the poetry community is small and the contest is judged without knowledge of the submitter’s identity, acquaintance with the judge and participation in a workshop taught by the judge are not disqualifying criteria.

Guidelines

• Submit manuscripts online at cavecanem.submittable.com/submit. Hard copy submissions will not be considered.
• One manuscript per poet.
• Upload manuscript online as a .doc or .pdf document. Include a title page with the title only and table of contents on separate pages. Author’s name should not appear on any pages within the manuscript and must be redacted if it appears in any of the poems.
• Manuscript must be paginated with a font size of 11 or 12 and 50-75 pages in length, inclusive of table of contents. A poem may be multiple pages, but no more than one poem per page is permitted.
• Do not include illustrations or images of any kind.
• Manuscripts not adhering to submission guidelines will be considered ineligible without notice to the applicant.
• Post-submission revisions or corrections are not permitted.

2020 Winner

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon selected Brionne Janae’s Blessed are the Peacemakers as the winner of the 2020 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize. Brionne Janae is a poet and teaching artist living in Brooklyn. They are the author of Because You Were Mine (2023), and After Jubilee (2017). Janae is a 2023 NEA Creative Writing Fellow, a Hedgebrook Alum and proud Cave Canem Fellow.