About the Participants
Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of a forthcoming book of essays on black art and creativity, Blackspace (Black Ocean, 2019), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). His writing has been published by Hyperallergic, PBS News Hour, the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, and the Bettering American Poetry anthology.
Philadelphia-based poet, singer, educator and curator Yolanda Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro (Hanging Loose Press, 2014) and the co-editor of Peace is a Haiku Song (Philadelphia Mural Arts, 2013). Wisher was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania in 1999 and the third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2016. A Pew and Cave Canem Fellow, she has been a Writer in Residence at Hedgebrook and Aspen Words. Wisher taught high school English for a decade, served as Director of Art Education for Philadelphia Mural Arts, and founded and directed the Germantown Poetry and Outbound Poetry Festivals.
Raised in Miami, Florida James Allister Sprang is a first-generation Caribbean-American and a visual artist. Sprang has studied at The Cooper Union (BFA) and The University of Pennsylvania (MFA). His work exists in public spaces, gallery spaces, theater spaces and the space generally found between the ears. He has shown/performed at institutions such as The Public Theater, Baryshnikov Art Center, Vox Populi, Abrons Arts Center, The Apollo Theater, The Brooklyn Museum, Knockdown Center, Pioneer Works and The Kitchen.
Amber Rose Johnson is a creative and critical thinker from Providence, RI currently based in Philadelphia, PA. She is currently pursuing a PhD in English and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and has previously held a research appointment in the Women and Gender Studies Department at the University of Toronto as a Fulbright Scholar. In her practice, she is invested in exploring the intersections between experimental poetics, performance, and critical theory throughout the Black Diaspora, as well as how various manifestations of “poetics of relation” can move us toward new ways of thinking, knowing, and being together.
