Deep Listening Space
73 Broadway, in the Historic Rondout
Kingston, NY
Contact: [email protected]
(845) 338-5984 | fax (845) 338-5986

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 1999
For More Information
845-338-5984, 914-339-5776
Fax 845-338-5986

Readers: Toi Derricotte, Michael S. Harper & Afaa M. Weaver

The Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. presents Cave Canem, Poetry Reading, a Deep Listening Reading taking place Saturday, June 26, 1999 at 8 PM at Mount St. Alphonsus, Rt. 9W, Esopus, NY. Cost: $10 and $5 students/seniors.

Prize-winning poets, Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, founded Cave Canem in 1996, after years of dreaming about creating a place for African American poets to gather. It has since become a popular annual event with up to 60 poets attending. These 60 poets will be in attendance for this reading. The workshop itself will take place between June 25 and July 3, 1999.

It all began when Toi Derricotte was visiting Vesuvius-Pompeii and at the house of the Tragic Poet was inspired by the inscription of a chained dog on a tile of the floor. Though Cave Canem means "Beware of the Dog," in Latin, it has no inherent relationship to the mission and vision of the workshop. Mission: Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets. (In rendering the logo, Toi saw fit to remove the dog's chain.)

Toi Derricotte was born in Detroit, MI and has published four collections of poetry. Tender, her most recent book of poems, won the Patterson Poetry Prize. Her memoir, The Black Notebooks, won the 1997 award in non-fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1998, and was nominated for the Pen/Martha Albrand Award for the art of the memoir. She is the recipient of two fellowships from the NEA, the United Black Artists, USA, Inc. and numerous awards. She is Professor of English in the creative writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, Delta Sigma Theta Endowed Chair in Poetry at Xavier University. She has also taught at New York University, George Mason University and the Old Dominion University as well as many writers workshops and conferences.

Michael S. Harper, is Professor of English at Brown University where he has taught since 1970. He has published ten books of poetry, two of which were nominated for the National Book Award, 1970 and 1977, Dear John, Dear Coltrane and Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems. Images of Kin won the Melville-Crane Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has co-edited two anthologies and was also co-editor of the Ralph Ellison special issue of the Carleton Miscellany, (Winter, 1980). He is the first Poet Laureate of the State of Rhode Island, a term he held from 1988-1993. He has received numerous honors and awards.

Afaa M. Weaver, formerly known as Michael S. Weaver, is a veteran of 15 years (1970-85) as a blue-collar factory worker in his native Baltimore. He has published five books of poetry including Timber and Prayer (University of Pittsburgh Press), My Father's Geography (1992), Water Song (1985), and Talisman. by Tia Chucha Press. He has also published short fiction in Gloria Naylor's anthology, Children of the Night: the Best Short Stories by Black Writers 1967 to the Present. His new play, Candy Lips & Hallelujah, will be premiered in Boston in 1999. Weaver is currently on leave from Rutgers to teach at Simmons College.

For more information please call: 914-338-5984 or 914-339-5776. This event made possible, in part, with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.