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Lannan Readings & Conversations

Cave Canem Evening Featuring Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Terrance Hayes, Patricia Smith, and Frank X Walker

Wednesday November 15 2006

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Jaune Evans Introduction.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Toi Derricotte Introduction.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Cornelius Eady Introduction.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Frank X Walker Reading.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Patricia Smith Reading.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Terrance Hayes Reading.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Cornelius Eady Reading.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Toi Derricotte Reading.

Click the Play button (triangle) to listen to the Entire Event (2 hours, 10 minutes).

Cave Canem (Beware of the Dog) is an organization committed to the discovery and cultivation of new voices in African American poetry.

Toi Derricotte, co-founder of Cave Canem, is the author of five books. The latest, a memoir, The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey, is an extraordinary and courageous account of race in the U.S. as seen through the eyes of a light-skinned black woman. Her books of poetry include Natural Birth, Captivity, and Tender.

Cornelius Eady is the author of six books of poetry including You Don’t Miss Your Water, The Autobiography of a Jukebox, and Brutal Imagination, and is co-founder of Cave Canem. His work has appeared in many journals and magazines and the anthologies Every Shut Eye Ain’t Asleep, and The Vintage Anthology of African American Poetry, (1750-2000).

Terrance Hayes is the author of Hip Logic, Muscular Music and most recently, Wind in a Box. Of poetry he has said, “Ultimately I’m interested in a Whitmanesque notion of poetry. A poetry open-armed and dangerous.” He is a Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Patricia Smith’s latest poetry book is Teahouse of the Almighty. She is the author of three previous books including Life According to Motown, and her work has appeared in The Paris Review and in Cave Canem’s anthology Gathering Ground. She has performed her poetry internationally and was a featured poet on the award-winning HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.”

Frank X Walker is a co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets and teaches at Eastern Kentucky University. He was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship in 2005. His poetry books include Buffalo Dance:The Journey of York and the recent Black Box.