Cave Canem: A Slideshow of Things Passed for What’s to Come
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Carl Phillips, Cave Canem poet and workshop instructor.
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"...there's no one way to describe African American poetry. It's a poetry that refuses narrow definition, and in that way it mirrors the diversity of people everywhere." --Phillips
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The tent on Monterey St.
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Over 300 people came to the tent on Monterey St. last June for the first annual Cave Canem/COAP reading. This summer's reading features poets Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Natasha Trethewey, and Amiri Baraka.
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Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, CM Burroughs. [left]
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"For its poets, Cave Canem provides extended family, sledgehammers for the glass ceiling, and support for poetics from different landscapes of crafted and acquired knowledge. When these poets join and call it "kin," communication gains a powerful proscenium." --CM Burroughs
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The sound of 600 hands clapping: Carl Phillips and the audience.
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Cave Canem fellow Makalani Bandele [left]; Cave Canem graduate fellow Rachel Eliza Griffiths [right]
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Claudia Rankine in the audience.
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"As a black person, I am interested in keeping blackness a present and active part of the world because it is a present and active part of the world. As poets we keep the field reflective by acknowledging who we are in the world – by coming clean with that." --Rankine, from Poetry Daily
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Sapphire signs a book after the reading.
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Cornelius Eady, Henry Reese, and Colleen J. McElroy
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"I was astonished by how well the event was integrated into the neighborhood. Artists dream of being 'a part' of culture rather than 'apart' from culture. Within the framework of a neighborhood...We all spoke the same language for a brief time that night." --McElroy
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Toi Derricotte at a Cave Canem workshop.
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"Cave Canem gives poets a chance to talk about their experiences and form their own community. This way they know they are not alone and can be more comfortable--even in situations where they are the only person of color." --Derricotte
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Jonterri Gadson, Douglas Brown, Mahogany Browne
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"Cave Canem is like a lab. You go into the laboratory and experiment to see if something works. Because they are outside the academic box Cave Canem fellows can find freedom of expression" --Colleen McElroy
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CC workshop students, Rickey Laurentiis, Carolyn Matthews, Yolanda JD Green
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"Cave Canem is an intergenerational community in terms of class, social status, and age." --Carolyn Matthews
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Photos © Renee Rosensteel
On Thursday June 23, City of Asylum/Pittsburgh will partner with Cave Canem to host a reading with Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Natasha Trethewey and Amiri Baraka. The event will take place on the 1400 block of Monterey Street at 7:30 PM and, as always, will remain free and open to the public.
This annual free reading was inaugurated in 2010, and the partnership between the two organizations included a series of writers’ workshops in the five COA/P houses on Sampsonia Way. The workshops allowed 54 African-American poets from across the United States to share a sample of their writing with poets Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, and Ed Roberson, among others.
The guest writers who read under a tent at Monterrey Street were Colleen J. McElroy, Carl Phillips, Claudia Rankine, and Sapphire. The event was a resounding success: with each seat under the tent occupied, neighbors and fellow Northsiders caught the free reading from their stoops and chairs they brought from home.
The slideshow above represents a selection of highlights from that wonderful evening.
Contact Laura Mustio to reserve your seats under the tent for this year’s reading, or bring a chair out to the street and join COA/P for what promises to be an excellent evening of poetry and community in Pittsburgh’s Northside.
Visit Pittsburgh’s Literary Calendar for more details.
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