Roger Bonair-Agard

Poet and spoken-word artist Roger Bonair-Agard was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the United States in 1987. His collections of poetry include Tarnish and Masquerade (2006); Gully (2010); and Bury My Clothes (2013), which was a long-list finalist for a National Book Award. He contributed to the collection Burning Down the House (2000), a selection of poems from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He is a two-time National Poetry Slam champion and has appeared on programs such as HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and the PBS NewsHour, among others.
 
A former Cave Canem fellow, Bonair-Agard performs his work and leads workshops internationally. He has been a writer-in-residence with Vision Into Art and a poet-in-residence with Young Chicago Authors. He is the cofounder and artistic director of the louderARTS Project and teaches poetry at the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Facility in Chicago.