James Cagney

James Cagney is an American poet and writer from Oakland, California. His book Martian: The Saint of Loneliness (Nomadic Press, 2022) won the 2021 James Laughlin Award. His debut book, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory (Nomadic Press, 2018), won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Cagney’s poetry has been published in outlets such as Alta Journal, Poetry Daily, TheBest American Poetry 2022, and Black Powerful (McSweeney’s, 2022). 

Cagney has appeared as a featured artist at the de Young Museum; the Oakland Museum; the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD SF); the Winter Warmer Poetry Festival in Cork, Ireland; Miko Kuro’s Midnight Tea: Midnight In Mumbai; Celebration of the Word; and other venues. 

He has also been a reader for established series like Moondrop Productions, Lyrics & Dirges, and the Mahogany Urban Poetry Series in Sacramento, as well as for the Litquake and Beast Crawl festivals.