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The expansion of Marvel and DC Comics' characters such as Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Black Lightning in film and on television has created a proliferation of poetry in this genre—receiving wide literary and popular attention.
The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry is a groundbreaking collection highlighting work from poets who have written verse within this growing tradition. In addition, the anthology will also feature the work of artists showcasing their interpretations of superheroes, Black comic characters, Afrofuturistic images from the African diaspora.
Moderators:
Gary Jackson is the author of the poetry collection Missing You, Metropolis (Graywolf, 2010), which received the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals including Callaloo, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Crab Orchard Review.
Len Lawson is the author of Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019), the chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and co-editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He has received fellowships from Tin House, Callaloo, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Contributors:
Anastacia-Renee is a writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDx Speaker and podcaster. She is the author of (v.) (Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish), Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere and Sidenotes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad. Recently she was selected by NBC News as part of the list of "Queer Artist of Color Dominate 2021's Must See LGBTQ Art Shows." Anastacia-Renee was former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017) and Arc Artist Fellow (2020).
Casey Rocheteau, a writer, artist, and historian, is the author of two collections of poetry: Knocked Up On Yes (2012) and The Dozen (2016). In the multi-genre works, Rocheteau draws on documentary and archival sources and frequently utilizes techniques such as collage to explore issues of race, gender, trauma, and mental illness.
Ashley M. Jones is the Poet Laureate of the State of Alabama (2022-2026). She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017), dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020, and her collection, REPARATIONS NOW! was on the longlist for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry.
Cortney Lamar Charleston is a Cave Canem fellow from the Chicago suburbs. His debut collection, Telepathologies, won the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, selected by D.A. Powell. He began writing and performing poetry as a member of The Excelano Project when he was an undergraduate studying economics and urban studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His poetry is a marriage between art and activism, and a call for a more involved and empathetic understanding of the diversity of the human experience. His most recent work, Doppelgangbanger, was released last March.
Sheree Renée Thomas is a multiple-award-winning author and a widely respected figure in the SFF community. She edited the World Fantasy-winning groundbreaking black speculative fiction anthologies, Dark Matter (2000 and 2004) and is the first to introduce W.E.B. Du Bois’s science fiction short stories. She was a 2020 World Fantasy Award Finalist in the Special Award – Professional category for contributions to the genre and is the Co-Host of the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony at Discon III in Washington, DC with Malka Older. Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, May 2020) is her first all prose collection.
