Cave Canem's Twentieth Anniversary

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Cave Canem, the organization that calls itself "a home for black poetry," the organization that, I would argue, has changed the face of American poetry more than any other in the last generation.

Cave Canem fellows have ventured forth from their humble workshops to win such honors as the Pulitzer Prize, Whiting Award, National Book Award, National Poetry Series, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, Norma Farber First Book Award, Laughlin Award, Macarthur Grants, poet laureate status on the state and national level, and many others.  Its fellows can't be pinned down to one aesthetic—they run the gamut between all the known 'camps' of poetry. They have roots in spoken word, academia, experimental, historical, Dadaist, Beat, Black Arts Movement, Black Lives Matter movement, and multiple languages. They are straight, gay, and every shade of the gender and gender preference spectrum. They primarily hail from nearly every part of the United States, but they also come from many foreign ports. They range from very early 20's to late 80's in age, and range across the class spectrum.

The impact of this organization, this fellowship, will be felt for generations to come. As a fellow who attended my first workshop in 1997, its second year, I find it difficult to explain to younger fellows the level of isolation and abandonment that Black poets felt before Cave Canem.  This was a time when one could pretty much count the number of Black poets being published each year on one hand and maybe two more fingers.  A time when the only information one might have about any writer would come from the back of a used, dog-eared paperback.  A time when most Americans did not have cell phones, internet access in their homes, or even a computer capable of such access.  A time before the internet communication revolution of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, and Skype.  Okay, okay—not that long ago—but long enough to remember how much smaller the world seemed before the world was at everyone's fingertips, and when finding black poets on bookstore shelves was even more of a treasure hunt than it is today.

At the time, I was a regular on the Chicago Open Mic scene, having reveled in the freedom and community of that empowering network of intrepid veterans from the Love Jones era, but slowly discovering the limitations of that format and finding myself wanting more.  However, I did not know what to want beyond my excursions to the used bookstores, the annual ecstasy of the Chicago Black Writer's Conference, and the vibrant community provided by Chicago's Guild complex and Hothouse venues.  Ever in search of more answers, I happened upon a reading by Cornelius Eady at the local YMCA, where his poems from You Don't Miss Your Water and other works moved me in unexpected and tremulous ways.  Months later, I stepped into a Hyde Park coffee shop that I'd rarely patronized, and on the wall I spied a small, obscure flier for something called Cave Canem that was supposedly a gathering of black poets in New York. Eady's name appeared on the flier, and I was heartened that such a warm, accessible, and challenging poet was involved in the endeavor.  I had rarely ever applied for grants or fellowships at that time—but I took that flier, got the best poems I had mustered at that point, and made out my application.  Months later, when I got my acceptance letter, I had no idea how I would be able to attend due to the travel and attendance costs—at the time, between my various poet-in-residence gigs at Chicago schools I was probably making maybe $13k a year tops.  Fortunately, when I asked for financial assistance, CC gave me enough to be able to muster the funds necessary to get there.

Let me stop here and say that while I am sharing my particular story, the basic elements here have been experienced time and time and time again over the past 20 years.  The poet hears about an oasis of black letter and sound—they find themselves in a place where they can bathe in the voices and stanzas of their people—their people from all parts of the country, of the world, their people from around the block and up the street, their people in all their hues and accents, their diaspora of folk and folklore and all tones and tongues gathered in one spot—some there on a shoestring budget and a silent prayer, some rolled up in bout-to-breakdown hoopties held together with duct tape and dollar store fix-a-flat, their peeps stepping off the Greyhound after a 30 hour journey, their kinfolk ambling off the Amtrak to share stanzas and styles and to gather in a circle, a circle like the one I found myself in almost 20 years ago, and to share their part of the journey, to unload their stories.

Back in '97, when I sat in my first opening circle of Cave Canem at the beginning of the week-long summer retreat, I was unprepared for the flood of tears and anguish, the testifying and witness I witnessed from those first few hours of bonding.  The circle of testimony and witness allowed 50 souls to unburden themselves of their psychic, professional, and artistic turmoil.  In retrospect, I realize I was witnessing the birthing pains of what I call the Cave Canem hive-mind—the self-realization and awakening of this ragtag (but always fly) group of poets to the fact that they were not alone—that there were others who understood their struggle, that could cry with them and then hold them up after the weeping was done.

Obviously, this was not the first time that Black poets had gathered together to share their stories and poems.  There had been many other such workshops and collaborations before—the Dark Room Collective, the regional workshops such as Chicago's OBAC and NOMMO, New York's Umbra, and other collective gatherings of the Black Arts movement.

But Cave Canem is unique in several ways.  Perhaps the most important factor in CC's success has been its refusal to be tied down to any one set of aesthetics, personnel, or membership.  One can attend the week-long CC summer workshop for a strict maximum of three summers—whether one is a fellow or an instructor.   This critical rule allows the organization to avoid calcification of its ideas and aesthetics.  It also has allowed for an understanding that there is no singular Black aesthetic—but that there is room for the "furious flowering" of a myriad of Black poetics that attempt to answer as many differing questions about ourselves as the world can contain.  A myriad that draws from any and every well available in order to create new and imaginative poems that echo through past, present, and future.

It's hard for me to be sure since I've been in the middle of it, witnessing almost from the beginning this force of nature and verse and family that is Cave Canem—but it is my suspicion that this small organization has been the most influential force in American poetry over the past quarter century.   From the organizations it has inspired to the collectives and publications fostered by its members to the ways it has changed the face of American poetry—and of course the momentous changes in the lives of individual poets—Cave Canem's reach has been inspiring, hard won, and indelible.  In Cave Canem's twentieth anniversary, I'd like to explore some of the ways it has given so much to America's voice and helped it to sing.