Cave Canem Foundation

Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.

In 1996, Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady founded Cave Canem with the intuition that African American poets would benefit from having a place of their own in the literary landscape. Over the past 12 years, that intuition has become a conviction. In Cave Canem emerging African American poets find necessary sustenance, a safe place to take artistic chances. The organizations community has grown from an initial gathering of 27 poets to become an influential movement with a renowned faculty and a high-achieving national fellowship of 272 poets. In addition to an annual writing retreat, programs include first and second book prizes with prestigious presses; regional workshops; a Legacy Conversation series with such poets as Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove and Derek Walcott; and the publication of two anthologies, "Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canems First Decade" (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and "The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South" (The University of Georgia Press, 2007).