Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is coeditor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket Books, 2015) and author of the chapbook Blood Percussion (Button Poetry, 2014). His book Wild Hundreds is forthcoming (University of Pittsburgh Press). More
A Cave Canem and Poets House alumnae, Mahogany L. Browne is the author of Smudge (available now), as well as several books including Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. More
Originally from rural Texas, J. Scott Brownlee is a founding member of The Localists, a literary collective that emphasizes place-based writing of personal witness, cultural memory, and the aesthetically marginalized working class. His poems appear in The Kenyon Review, Narrative, West Branch Wired, Beloit Poetry Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Devil’s Lake, RATTLE, The Greensboro Review,… More
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is a poet, writer, and dessert enthusiast from Columbus, Ohio. He is the editor of Again I Wait For This To Pull Apart, an anthology forthcoming from Freezeray Press. His work has been published in Radius, Stirring, Muzzle, Vinyl, joINT, Borderline, and various other journals. He has been nominated for the pushcart prize, and his poem… More
Jacqui Germain is a poet, writer and student organizer currently living in St. Louis, MO. She has featured at Young Chicago Authors in Chicago, IL, at the #BlackPoetsSpeakOut event in St. Louis and several other venues around St. Louis. Her work has been published in Muzzle Magazine, Anti-, Rattle, as well as other publications. She has… More
sam sax is an NEA Fellow and a Fellow at The Michener Center for Writers where he’s the associate poetry editor at Bat City Review. He’s the two time Bay Area Unified Grand Slam Champion + author of the chapbooks, A Guide to Undressing Your Monsters (Button Poetry 2014) + sad boy / detective (Winner… More
Cameron Awkward-Rich is currently a PhD candidate in Modern Thought & Literature at Stanford University. He has represented the Bay Area at multiple national poetry slams and is on staff at Muzzle Magazine. He is the author of Transit (Button Poetry 2015). You can find Cam’s work in The Journal, The Seattle Review, The Bakery and elsewhere. You… More
Danez Smith is the winner of a 2014 Ruth Lilly/Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He is the author of “[insert] boy” (YesYes Books, 2014), one of the Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2014, & two chapbooks– “black movie” (Button Poetry, 2015), winner of the 2014 Button Poetry Prize, & “hands on ya… More
Aziza Barnes is a brown woman poet from Los Angeles currently living in New York. She is a senior at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, pursuing her BFA in theater, creative writing and Africana Studies. She was a member of NYU’s poetry slam teams in 2011 and 2012, winning first place… More
Michael Lee is a Norwegian American writer, performer and youth worker. Michael has received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and an Intermedia Arts VERVE grant. He ranked ninth at the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam and was named the 2011 “Best Individual Poet” of Collegiate Nationals (CUPSI). Michael’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle,… More