POETSKISS.COM

Media Contact:
Hafizah Geter, Programs Coordinator, Cave Canem Foundation: 718.858.0000; hgeter@ccpoets.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Award-winning Poet Reads at The New School & Conducts Master Class in DUMBO
                                                                  

Brooklyn, NY (January 27, 2012)—Cave Canem Foundation, North America’s premier home for black poetry, is pleased to announce that Cave Canem co-founder Toi Derricotte will debut her fifth collection of poetry, The Undertaker’s Daughter, hailed by Terrance Hayes as her “her most stirring and innovative work yet,” on Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 6:30 pm at The New School’s Wolman Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York City. A book signing with the author and a reception will follow; the program is free and open to the public. In a rare opportunity for New Yorkers, on Saturday, February 18, 10 am – 1 pm, the poet will conduct “Poetry or Prose: Rethinking the Poetic Line,” a master class held at Cave Canem, 20 Jay Street, Suite 310-A, Brooklyn, New York. For more information and to register, visit www.cavecanempoets.org or call 718.858.0000.

Toi Derricotte, Jane Hirshfield, and Arthur Sze

Elected Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets

New York, January 17—Tree Swenson, Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets, announced that Toi Derricotte, Jane Hirshfield, and Arthur Sze have been elected to the Board of Chancellors, the Academy's advisory board of distinguished poets. The new Chancellors were elected by current Academy Chancellors Victor Hernández Cruz, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Marilyn Hacker, Lyn Hejinian, Juan Felipe Herrera, Edward Hirsch, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Marie Ponsot, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, and Anne Waldman.

In 1996, with Cornelius Eady, Toi co-founded the Cave Canem Foundation, a "home for black poetry." She is the author of several collections of poetry including, The Undertaker's Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), Tender (1997), which won the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize, Captivity (1989), and The Empress of the Death House (Lotus Press, 1978). Her memoir, The Black Notebooks (W.W. Norton, 1997) was a New York Times Notable Book. Derricotte's honors include the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Elizabeth Kray Award for service to the field of poetry from Poets House, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is a Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.