NBF Presents Opens s3: Lincoln Center Poetry Festival
Andrés Cerpa, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Fred Moten with Brandon López

Maya Marshall, Maui the Writer, Marilyn Nelson, Major Jackson, Sarah Kay, Jive Poetic, Taylor Mali, Lynne Thompson, Brad Walrond, Mel Chanté + Franky Payne, Ajanaé Dawkins, Max Michael Jacob and DJ Kheeezus

Featured Artists: Friday, May 23

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (Poet) is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of Water & Salt, which won the 2018 Washington State Book Award; Kaan & Her Sisters, a finalist for the Firecracker Award; and Something About Living, Winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry and the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry. Her writing has been published in journals including the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, Poets.org, Protean Magazine, and Prairie Schooner, and in anthologies including The Long Devotion and We Call to the Eye & the Night. She was the translator and curator of the 2022 series Poems from Palestine at The Baffler. She is currently curating a series on Palestinian writers for Words Without Borders entitled Against Silence.

Andrés Cerpa (Poet) is the author of three books of poetry: Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy; The Vault, which was celebrated as one of the best poetry books of 2021 by the New York Times; and The Palace, which is forthcoming. A recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, his writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, The Kenyon Review, The Nation, and elsewhere. He is an educator and faculty member of Randolph College’s MFA program.

Brandon López (Musician) and Fred Moten (Poet) have been playing music together—with percussionist Gerald Cleaver, whenever possible—since 2018. In 2022 and 2024, they and Cleaver released albums on Reading Group Records. López is a Puerto Rican/American bassist, composer, and improviser working at the fringes of contemporary music. He has worked with many luminaries including John Zorn and Tony Malaby and has been the recipient of numerous awards by organizations like the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Jerome Foundation. Moten has written and spoken extensively on black social aesthetics. He is also involved in long-term collaborations with Laura Harris, Stefano Harney, and Wu Tsang.

Maya Marshall (Poet) is a poet, essayist, editor, and professor. She is the author of the poetry collection All the Blood Involved in Love (2022) and the chapbook Secondhand (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Marshall co-founded underbelly, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from MacDowell, Cave Canem, Sewanee's Writers' Conference, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, Vermont Studio Center, and Emory University, among others. She earned her BA from Loyola University Chicago and her MFA from the University of South Carolina. Her poems and essays have been published in or are forthcoming in numerous collections and publications including Prose for the People (Penguin Random House, 2025), American Poetry Review, the Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Boston Review, Poets.Org, Split This Rock, and Best New Poets. Marshall serves as poetry director and as an editor at Haymarket Books. She is a literary consultant for the Writing Freedom Fellowship, a fellowship for system-impacted writers.

Marilyn Nelson (Poet) is a three-time finalist for the National Book Award, is one of America’s most celebrated poets. She is the author or translator of some twenty poetry books for adults and children, five chapbooks, and a verse memoir, named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry—a series of 50 unrhymed sonnets about growing up in the 1950’s in an African American military family, each poem stamped with the place and date of one of the many places her family lived. Image Journal writes, “American history as conceived by Marilyn Nelson is the inside-out, last-shall-be-first version. She inhabits the voices of the overlooked and disenfranchised and shines light into forgotten corners that reveal essential truths about the whole….But if she is a revisionist historian’s poet, she is also a child’s poet, a mother’s poet, a housekeeper’s poet, and scientist’s poet….It’s this breadth of perspective, from pole to pole, past to present, from spheres domestic to atmospheric, that make her so remarkable. Nelson is also an openhanded citizen of the nation of writers.”

Brad Walrond (Poet) is a poet, author, performance artist, and one of the foremost writers and performers of the 1990s Black Arts Movement centered in New York City. Walrond’s debut collection, Every Where Alien, (2024) Moore Black Press | Amistad / HarperCollins, chronicles the author’s own Black queer exploration of the world, amidst the discovery of 1990s-early 2000s New York City underground art and resistance movements. June 2024 Brad released his debut spoken word album Alien Day. Brad’s poems have been published in: The Atlantic, Poem-A-Day | Academy of American Poets, African Voices Magazine, and elsewhere. Walrond holds a B.A. from The City College of New York and an M.A. from Columbia University.

Ajanaé Dawkins (Poet) is a poet, conceptual artist and theologian. She works through poetry, visual art, performance, and audio to explore the politics of faith, grief, and intimate relationships between Black women. As a theologian, she blends cultural criticism, memoir, and theology as autotheory to consider the relationship between Black church history, spirituality, and creation. Her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, the Indiana Review, Frontier Poetry, The BreakBeat Poets Black Girl Magic Anthology and more. Her solo-exhibition, No One Teaches Us How To Be Daughters, debuted at Urban Arts Space in 2024. Her chapbook, BLOOD-FLEX, won the New Delta Review’s Chapbook prize and is forthcoming in Spring 2025. Ajanaé has performed for the United Nations Secretary of Sexual Violence in Conflict. She contributed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim’s Poetry is Not a Luxury project, led by Ama Codjoe. Her work has been featured on PBS, For Harriet, and Def Jam. She is the winner of the Tinderbox Poetry Journal’s Editors Prize. She was the Taft Museum’s 2022 Duncanson Artist in Residence and is a fellow of Torch Literary, The Watering Hole, and Pink Door.

Taylor Mali (Poet) is a four-time National Poetry Slam champion and one of the original poets on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. The author of six books of poetry including Late Father & Other Poems, he is also the inventor of Metaphor Dice, a game that helps writers think more figuratively. He lives in Brooklyn.

Lynne Thompson (Poet) served as Los Angeles’ 4th Poet Laureate and received a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award; Start With A Small Guitar (What Books Press); Fretwork, winner of the 2019 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize selected by Jane Hirshfield; and, Blue on a Blue Palette, published by BOA Editions in April 2024. A lawyer by training, Thompson serves on the Boards of The Poetry Foundation, Los Angeles Review of Books, her alma mater, Scripps College, and she is the President of the Cave Canem Foundation. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry International, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and the Georgia Review.

Maui the Writer (Poet) is a 5x author, poet, and host of the popular podcast Self Care and Chill. As a mother and creator, Mauiis dedicated to inspiring others through her work on relationships, self-love, and healing. With sold-out US tours and a growing library of empowering books, she continues to make a lasting impact.

Major Jackson (Poet) is the author of six collections of poetry: Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems (2023); The Absurd Man (2020); Roll Deep (2015); Holding Company (2010); Hoops (2006), all published by W.W. Norton; and Leaving Saturn (2002) by University of Georgia Press. Razzle Dazzle was awarded Yale Library’s Patricia Cannon Willis Prize for American Poetry. Holding Company and Hoops were both selected as finalists for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry; and Leaving Saturn, awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. In The Absurd Man, inspired by Albert Camus’s seminal Myth of Sisyphus, Jackson’s fifth volume subtly configures the poet as “absurd hero” and plunges headfirst into a search for stable ground in an unstable world. In Roll Deep, he appropriated the vernacular notion of “rolling deep” to explore human intimacy and war, seeking a rhythmic sound that expresses the realities of the twenty-first century.

Mel Chanté (Poet) is a Brooklyn-based poet, artist, founder and host of the Vow to Self Podcast and author of Brown Butter. Mel seeks to inspire self love and healing through her work. Touring major cities throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Copenhagen, Berlin, and London, she was an opening act for Rupi Kaur’s World Tour, voiced meditations for one of Apple’s Top 20 podcasts and has written music for international artists. Mel is the co-host and co-curator of Not Your Average Open Mic, a monthly showcase in Brooklyn that celebrates the community and culture of poetry. Mel Chanté’s poetry and music has garnered over 4 million streams with worldwide monthly listeners, and is available for listening on all major music streaming platforms.

Sarah Kay (Poet) is a writer, performer, and educator from New York City. She is the author of five books of poetry including B, No Matter the Wreckage, The Type, All Our Wild Wonder, and her newest collection A Little Daylight Left. Kay is the founder and co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that uses poetry to entertain, educate, and empower students and educators in classrooms and communities worldwide. kaysarahsera.com

Jive Poetic (Poet and DJ) is a poet, DJ, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BA in Media Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo and his MFA in Writing and Activism from Pratt Institute. In 2017, Jive was the first John Morning Award for Art and Service recipient. He founded Brooklyn House Party (BKHP), Insurgent Poets Society, Carnival Slam: Cultural Exchange, and co-founded the Brooklyn Poetry Slam. His poetry aired on TVONE’s Lexus Verses and Flow and PBS NewsHour. His poems were published by the Academy of American Poets, No, Dear Magazine, and Toss The Earth. As a DJ, he has played opening concert sets for Busta Rhymes, Beenie Man, Gang Starr, and Redman. International recognition for his work has come from the British Arts Council, the Minister of Culture for Antigua and Barbuda, and US Embassies in Australia, Brazil, and Poland. Jive has held writing residencies at Air Serenbe, Fort Belvoir Army Base, Rhode Island Writer’s Colony, Marble House Project, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. When Jive is not touring or hosting, He teaches performance poetry and hip-hop workshops to underserved youth in New York City.

Max Michael Jacob (Musician) is the co-founder, executive director, and bassist of the conductorless string ensemble “Shattered Glass.” Max earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Metropolitan Opera bassist Jeremy McCoy. He has gone on to tour Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Australia, Canada, and most states in the US with various ensembles. Doubling on electric bass, Jacob has performed with Talib Kweli, Pumpkinhead, Levi Robin, Streetlight Manifesto, and many others as bassist and/or music director. As an active composer/arranger/producer he has worked with Mahogany L. Browne, Cyrus Aaron, members of Imani Winds, Wrabel, Willow Avalon, and many others.

Kheeezus (DJ) Hailing from the vibrant borough of Brooklyn, KHEEEZUS has spent the last 8 years making waves behind the decks throughout the bustling streets of New York City. Her journey into the world of DJing was fueled by a deep-rooted love for music, nurtured by the diverse tapestry of cultures and sounds surrounding her growing up in NYC. During her time as a student at Howard University, KHEEEZUS gained a knack for seamlessly blending sounds into captivating narratives, and has mastered the art of creating unforgettable musical experiences that transport listeners on a journey through rhythm and soul.

Featured Artists: Saturday, May 24

Kai Diata Giovanni (Poet) is an 18 year old Brooklyn-based poet and performer who holds the title of 2024-2025 NYC Youth Poet Laureate. They published their first book of poetry, "The Words That Need To Be Heard", at 13 years old. Kai was a 2024 Urban Word Slam Team member and the first runner-up in the 2023 New York State Youth Poet Laureate competition. They have organized and performed as an artivist (artist-activist) with A New Black Arts Movement, Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE), Girl Be Heard, and Bridges: A Pan-Afrikan Arts Movement. Kai has also been a featured performer at the Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Blue Note Jazz Club, and various other venues in NYC over the past 10 years.

Danté Stewart (Poet) is the author of debut memoir Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle, a stirring meditation on being Black and learning to love in a loveless, anti-Black world. The book won Stewart the Georgia Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writer’s Association in 2022, by The Center for American Progress as one of “22 Faith Leaders to Watch in 2022,” and by Religion News Service as one of “Ten Up-And-Coming Faith Influencers. Throughout the memoir, Stewart uses his personal experiences as a vehicle to reclaim and reimagine spiritual virtues like rage, resilience, and remembrance—and explores how these virtues might function as a work of love against an unjust, unloving world. This sharply observed journey is an intimate meditation on coming of age in a time of terror. Stewart reveals the profound faith he discovered even after experiencing the violence of the American church: a faith that loves Blackness; speaks truth to pain and trauma; and pursues a truer, realer kind of love than the kind we’re taught, a love that sets us free.

Evie Shockley (Poet & Scholar) is the author of suddenly we (NAACP Image Award; National Book Award Finalist), semiautomatic (Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; Pulitzer Prize finalist), and the new black (Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). Among the honors she has received for her body of work are the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Holmes National Poetry Prize, and the Stephen Henderson Award. Her joys include participating in poetry communities such as Cave Canem and collaborating with artists working in various media. Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University.

Brittany Rogers (Poet) is poet, visual artist, educator, and life-long Detroiter. She has work published or forthcoming in Lit Hub, The Hopkins Review, Scalawag, The Poet Lore, Indiana Review, Four Way Review, Underbelly, Mississippi Review, Lambda Literary, and Oprah Daily. Brittany is a fellow of VONA, The Watering Hole, Poetry Incubator, and Pink Door Writing Retreat. Brittany is Editor-in-Chief of Muzzle Magazine and co-host of VS Podcast. She is the author of the poetry collection Good Dress, a Michigan Notable Book for 2025, and finalist for the NAACP Image Award. (Tin House, 2024).

Vincent Toro (Poet) is a Puerto Rican poet, playwright, and professor. He is the author of three poetry collections: Hivestruck (Penguin Random House, 2024), Tertulia (Penguin Random House, 2020), and Stereo.Island.Mosaic. (Ahsahta, 2016), which won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Vincent is a recipient of the Caribbean Writer’s Cecile De Jongh Poetry Prize, the Spanish Repertory Theater’s Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award, a Poet’s House Emerging Poets Fellowship, a New York Council for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a New Jersey State Council for the Arts Writer’s Fellowship. Vincent is also a recipient of the Letras Boricua fellowship, a partnership with the Flamboyan Foundation funded in part by the Carnegie Mellon Foundation. His poetry and prose have been published in dozens of magazines and journals and have been anthologized in Saul Williams’ CHORUS, Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT, and Latino Poetry: the Library of America Anthology. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Rider University, and serves as a poetry editor for Kweli Literary Journal.

6ft High and Rising (Two Poets) is the powerful spoken word duo of Boris "Bluz" Rogers and Dasan Ahanu, two poetic forces whose words elevate hearts, minds, and spirits. Bluz, a Grammy-winning poet and performer, is celebrated for his commanding stage presence and ability to weave emotion into every verse. Dasan Ahanu, a seasoned and decorated poet, educator, and cultural organizer, is known for his thought-provoking narratives and commitment to the community. Together, as 6ft High and Rising, they craft performances that blend their strengths into a compelling display of insight and lyricism. Their work explores resilience, social justice, love, and identity, captivating audiences with authentic storytelling and persuasive delivery. From poetry slams to cultural festivals, 6ft High and Rising stands as a testament to the transformative power of spoken word.

Jasmine Mans (Poet) is a queer Black poet and performance artist from Newark, New Jersey. Jasmine’s debut poetry collection, Black Girl, Call Home (Berkley Penguin Random House) published in 2021 to critical and commercial acclaim, and was named one of the most anticipated books of the season by Oprah, TIME, Vogue, Vulture, Essence, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Refinery 29, Shondaland, Bustle, and Reader’s Digest. The collection went on to receive the prestigious Stonewall Honor Award, as well as a BCALA Award in the Poetry category.

Tiana Clark (Poet) is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth (Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster, 2025) and I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), winner of the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. She is also the author of Equilibrium (Bull City Press, 2016), selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. A winner of the 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, she has also received a 2019 NEA Literature Fellowship, a 2019 Pushcart Prize, and the 2021–2022 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, Oxford American, The Best American Poetry 2022, and elsewhere. She is currently the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College.

Ursula Rucker (Poet, Recording Artist, Activist) is a poet, recording artist, songwriter, activist and revolutionary Ma’at Mama, Ursula Rucker is a certified veteran of the global music and poetry scene. A skilled writer and dynamic performer, Rucker’s rich and textured voice is one of the world’s great, living instruments. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Rucker began to share her poetic gifts in her 20s, performing at open mics in the city before two standout recorded performances announced to the world that Rucker was an emerging force to be reckoned with. In 1994, Rucker broke out performing a memorable lead vocal for “Supernatural”, the classic House tune by DJ King Britt side-project, Firefly. The song remains a dancefloor classic today. That same year, Rucker would record a jaw-dropping performance on The Roots “The Unlocking”, the closer from their ground-breaking full length Do You Want More?!!!??! Today, Rucker enjoys a standing as a respected poet, writer and vocalist.

Lauren Whitehead (Poet) is a writer, performer and dramaturg. She writes in several forms including poetry, adaptations and drama. Her poems have been published in POETRY magazine and Apogee Journal as well as in selected anthologies such as Break Beat Poets, Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic and What Things Cost, the first anthology of labor writing in nearly a century. Whitehead adapted the text of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ award winning memoir, Between the World and Me for staging at the Apollo Theater, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and for the TV adaptation on HBO. In 2022, Whitehead was a finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. In her most recent performance, she originated the lead role of “Un/Sung” in “We Shall Not Be Moved,” which she performed at the Wilma Theater and the Stadsschouwburg Theater in Amsterdam. Currently, she is a Professor of Drama at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Max Michael Jacob (Musician) is the co-founder, executive director, and bassist of the conductorless string ensemble “Shattered Glass.” Max earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Metropolitan Opera bassist Jeremy McCoy. He has gone on to tour Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Australia, Canada, and most states in the US with various ensembles. Doubling on electric bass, Jacob has performed with Talib Kweli, Pumpkinhead, Levi Robin, Streetlight Manifesto, and many others as bassist and/or music director. As an active composer/arranger/producer he has worked with Mahogany L. Browne, Cyrus Aaron, members of Imani Winds, Wrabel, Willow Avalon, and many others.

Jive Poetic (Poet and DJ) is a poet, DJ, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BA in Media Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo and his MFA in Writing and Activism from Pratt Institute. In 2017, Jive was the first John Morning Award for Art and Service recipient. He founded Brooklyn House Party (BKHP), Insurgent Poets Society, Carnival Slam: Cultural Exchange, and co-founded the Brooklyn Poetry Slam. His poetry aired on TVONE’s Lexus Verses and Flow and PBS NewsHour. His poems were published by the Academy of American Poets, No, Dear Magazine, and Toss The Earth. As a DJ, he has played opening concert sets for Busta Rhymes, Beenie Man, Gang Starr, and Redman. International recognition for his work has come from the British Arts Council, the Minister of Culture for Antigua and Barbuda, and US Embassies in Australia, Brazil, and Poland. Jive has held writing residencies at Air Serenbe, Fort Belvoir Army Base, Rhode Island Writer’s Colony, Marble House Project, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. When Jive is not touring or hosting, He teaches performance poetry and hip-hop workshops to underserved youth in New York City and the tri-state area. In 2024, Jive released his newest latest poetry collection, Skip Tracer.

Special Thanks to Our Valued Vendors
New York Poetry Society, Taylor & Co. Books, and Greenelight Photo.

And a special thanks to the National Book Foundation for making possible the appearance of Andrés Cerpa, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Fred Moten with Brandon López.