New Works: Marcus Jackson, Amanda Johnston and Dustin Pearson

Come celebrate the recent publications of new work by three extraordinary Cave Canem poets. Marcus Jackson is the author of Neighborhood Register (CavanKerry Press, 2011) and most recently, Pardon My Heart (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2018), of which Peter Covino feted as “a lyrically complex, beautifully integrated collection.” Amanda Johnston‘s debut Another Way to Say Enter (Argus House Press, 2017) holds poems that possess “A beautifully crafted, fierce and compelling voice” as said by Cave Canem co-founder Toi Derricotte. Dustin Pearson is the author of  Millennial Roost (Eyewear Publishing, 2018), a debut of which Jericho Brown says is “a beautifully necessary book.” Free and open to the public. Refreshments served. This event is co-sponsored by the NYU Creative Writing Program.

Marcus Jackson earned a BA from the University of Toledo and continued his poetry studies at NYU and as a Cave Canem fellow. His poems have appeared in such publications as The American Poetry ReviewThe New Yorker, and Tin House. His first collection of poetry, Neighborhood Register was released in 2011 by CavanKerry Press. His second collection, Pardon My Heart (Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly Books), is out this year.  He lives with his partner and son in Columbus, Ohio, and he teaches in the MFA programs at Ohio State and Queens University of Charlotte.

Amanda Johnston earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter (Argus House Press, 2017). Her poetry and interviews have appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, CallalooPoetryPuerto del SolMuzzlePluck!, and the anthologies, Fulldi-ver-cityThe Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. The recipient of multiple Artist Enrichment grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Christina Sergeyevna Award from the Austin International Poetry Festival, she is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. Johnston teaches at the Stonecoast MFA program, is a co-founder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder and executive director of Torch Literary Arts.

Dustin Pearson is the author of Millennial Roost (Eyewear Publishing, 2018), and a McKnight Doctoral Fellow in Creative Writing at Florida State University. The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, Pearson has served as the editor of Hayden’s Ferry Review and a Director of the Clemson Literary Festival. He won the Academy of American Poets Katharine C. Turner Prize and holds an MFA from Arizona State University. His work appears in Blackbird, Vinyl Poetry, Bennington Review, and elsewhere.

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