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Photo courtesy of the author

Jamaal May

Photo courtesy of the author

Jamaal May is a poet, editor, and filmmaker from Detroit, MI, where he taught poetry in public schools and worked as a freelance audio engineer and touring performer. His poetry books include The Big Book of Exit Strategies (2016) and Hum (2013), both from Alice James Books. He is the recipient of the 2013 Indiana Review Poetry Prize and the 2012 Beatrice Hawley Award as well as fellowships from Cave Canem and The Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. His poems appear in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, the Believer, and the Kenyon Review.

May has been a Visiting Poet at Smith College and a Distinguished Writer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College and founded the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press.

Prizes, Awards & Fellowships
  • 2014 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry