Xavier Cavazos

Xavier Cavazos is the author of Diamond Grove Slave Tree (2015), the inaugural Prairie Seed Poetry Prize from Ice Cube Press, and Barbarian at the Gate (2014), which was published in the Poetry Society of America's New American Poets Chapbook Series. Cavazos earned an MFA in Creative Writing and the Environment from Iowa State University.
 
Cavazos was part of the 1990’s second wave of writers from New York’s legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café that included Paul Beatty, Regie Cabico, Ava Chin, Maggie Estep, Reg E. Gaines, Tracie Morris, Willie Perdomo, Beau Sia, Edwin Torres, Crystal Williams, Sal Williams, and Emily XYZ.
 
Cavazos has poetry published in anthologies such as Aloud: Voices from the NuYoRican Poets Café (1994), Under the Pomegranate Tree: Best Latino Erotica (1994), Verses That Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the POEMFONE Poets (1996), and Best American Experimental Writing 2015.
 
Cavazos’s honors include a Nuyorican Poets Café “Fresh Poet Award”(1993), Grand Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poet’s Café (1995), and a Poetry Society of America National Chapbook Fellowship (2013). He currently teaches in the Africana and Black Studies and the Professional and Creative Writing Programs at Central Washington University.