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Jack Agüeros was the Director, fornearly a decade, of El Museo delBarrio, the only Puerto Rican museumin the United States. His most recentbook of poems is Sonnets from the Pu e rto Rican. His other booksinclude Correspondence Between theS t o n e h a u l e r s ( p o e t ry), Dominoes &Other Stories from the Puerto Rican(short fiction), and Song of the Simple

Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos (translation).

Elena Alexander is a writer of poet-ry and “fictionnonfiction”; shealso organizes readings for theMAD ALEX Arts Foundation. Hermost recent work is Footnotes: SixChoreographers Inscribe the Page.

Sherman Alexie is the author of ten books of poetry and fic-tion. His first book, The Business of Fancydancing, was cho-

sen as a New York Ti m e sNotable Book of the Year. Hewrote a script adapted fromone of the short stories in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,which was made into the film Smoke Signals. He haswon a Lila Wa l l a c e - R e a d e r ’sDigest Writer’s Award and anAmerican Book Award.

Miguel Algarín is a founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe inNew York City. Author of eight collections of poetry, he is alsothe co-editor of Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Penny Arcade debuted at the age of 17 in the Playhouse of theRidiculous and was a part of Andy Warhol’s Factory. In 1982she started her own solo work. She is a member of Feministsfor Free Expression.

Max Blagg is the author of severalbooks, most recently Pink Instrument,a collection of poems, and the forth-coming novel, Diving for Blondes. Healso writes a monthly column,“Bohemian Veneer” for New York’sPaper Magazine.

Robert Bly is the author of tencollections of poetry and severalbooks of cultural criticism,including the bestseller I ro nJohn, which launched the men’smovement to national fame. Hismost recent book of poetry isM orning Po e m s . He lives inMinneapolis, Minnesota.

Jim Boyd & Rez Bound are aNative American group fro mthe Colville Indian Reservationin Washington State. They per-f o rm original comtemporarymusic written and recorded byJim Boyd, who is also knownfor his music in the movieSmoke Signals by Miramax.

Braggin’ Rites is an emcee competition which started in 1997at the Nuyorican Poets Café. It was founded by Isaac “105”Collazo, Fritz “106” Jeanniton and Edwin “Yeshua dapo Ed”Avellaneda, who as a collective form Pen & Pad Productions.

Isaac Collazo as well as being the cre-ator of Braggin’ Rites is also an emceeunder the name of Agent Eye 105 andalong with Agent 106 he forms thegroup State of Flux.

Fritz Jeanniton is a graphic artist who designs the group’s logos and performs as an emcee under the name of Agent 106.

Edwin “Yeshua dapo Ed” Avellaneda is the frontman forBraggin’ Rites and a respected emcee in the underground circuit. He has released an EP with his partner Siah as well asa solo single.

DJ DP One is one of the most active DJ’s inNew York City’s underground hip-hop scene.He is also part of the rap group OBS and theDJ crew Turntable Anihilists.

DJ Bless has been deejaying for eight years and producingfor five years. He is in the process of producing the upcomingWee Be Foolish album cited for release in late 1999.

Blowout has been rhyming for sevenyears and is part of the deejay crewTurntable Anihilists. He has also beena professional barber for five years.

Influence is an emcee who has been rhyming for seven yearsand has performed at many of New York City’s hottest under-ground venues such as Baby Jupiter and Arlene’s Grocery.

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Pumpkinhead is a well known under-ground lyricist and a former winner ofBraggin’ Rites. He is part of the groupOBS and intends to release a soloalbum by the end of 1999.

Subconscious has been shining throughout the New York Cityopen mic circuit. He is an emcee from the group SightBeyond Sight.

Vast has been an emcee for over adecade. He is part of the group CannibalOx who are presently working on an EP.

Yak, a 16 year-old Iranian, is theyoungest emcee in the competition.He is part of the group Theoretiks.

Lee Ann Brown teachespoetry and writing andis the editor of the inde-pendent poetry pre s sTender Buttons, whichpublishes experimentalpoetry by women. Herbook Po l y v e r s e e w o nthe 1996 New American Poetry Series Competition.

Dana Bryant has recently released a col-lection of poetry, Song of the Siren, and aCD of her poems backed by music,Wishing from the Top. She is a graduateof the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where shewas the Grand Slam Champ in 1992, andThe Stoop at Tribes, and has toured theworld with such artists as Ronny Jordanand The Groove Collective, the NuyoricanPoets Cafe Live, and Real Live Poetry. Sheis featured in The Rolling Stone Book ofWomen In Rock and the I n t e rn a t i o n a lWho’s Who of Music.

Regie Cabico is co-editorof Poetry Nation: A NorthAmerican Anthology ofFusion. His solo show “thepoet welcomes his malemuse a cabaret poem in 1 act” will be presented atthe Public Theater in NewYork. He is a member ofthe poetry slam teamMouth Almighty, whichwon first place at the 1997 National Slam Tournament.

Hal Cannon is a founding directorof the Western Folklife Center andits famous child, the CowboyP o e t ry Gathering. He conceivedand developed The Open Roadradio show and co-produced theVoices of the West radio series. Asa musician, his band, the DeseretString Band/Bunkhouse Orchestra,have made a specialty of research-

ing and performing nineteenth century music from the West.

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins — Cephas, a National HeritageAward winner, and Wiggins, started performing togetherafter meeting at the 1977 Smithsonian National FolklifeFestival. Playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, they performPiedmont countryblues and are consid-ered “ambassadors ofthe blues,” havingt o u red for the U. S.State Department inAfrica, South America,and Russia.

Sylvia Cole was born of Jewish immigrants on the Lower EastSide and her first language was Yiddish. She became a highschool English teacher for 28 years. After retirement, she cre-ated a series of poetry cassettes: Portraits in Poetry, Poetryand Music, Poems of Social Protest, The Voice in Poetry.

A b d o u l aye Diabate is fro mKeila, Mali, and was raised inthe heart of the Mandeng tra-dition. He is from a long lineof Jalilu. He has also spentt w e n ty years perf o rming c o n t e m p o r a ry and popularstyles of music.

Ani DiFranco is a singer/s o n g w r i t e r / g u i t a r i s t /poet who released herfirst album herself in1990. She started herown re c o rd company,Righteous Babe Records,and has produced herown ten subsequentalbums. Recently she hasbegun to experimentwith and record a mix ofmusic and spoken word.

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Don Edwards is well-versed in thelore and musical traditions of theAmerican cowboy. During his teenshe chased rodeos and workedranches in Texas and New Mexico;he also wrote and researched cow-boy musical traditions and madehis first record in 1964. Recently, hea p p e a red in Robert Redford ’smovie The Horse Whisperer andwrote songs for the soundtrack.

Martín Espada is a former tenantlawyer and the author of fivebooks of poetry, includingImagine the Angels of Bre a d ,which won the Before ColumbusF o u n d a t i o n’s American BookAward. He is also the editor of ElC oro: A Chorus of Latino andLatina Po e t ry and Po e t ry LikeB read: Poets of the Po l i t i c a lImagination. Mr. Espada teachesin the Department of English at the University ofMassachusetts, Amherst.

Sandra María Esteves is a lifelongresident of the Bronx and a primemover in Latino literary culture. Herfirst book of poems, Yerba Buena,was revolutionary in establishingan urban Latin woman’s aesthetic.Her third collection, B l u e s t o w nM o c k i n b i rd Mambo, blends oraland literary traditions in a fusion ofspiritual blues and women’s poetics.

Dee Evetts began writing haiku in 1964.He co-founded the British Haiku Societyin 1990 and started the Spring StreetHaiku Group the following year. He hasbeen a member of the Haiku Society ofAmerica since 1987 where he hasjudged the HSA Renku Contest in 1989,1995 and 1996.

Daniel Ferri created the Head-To-HeadHaiku competition form and has beenthe Headmaster for it at the NationalPoetry Slam Tournament since 1995. Hecurrently teaches sixth grade and was afeatured poet in the movie Slamnation.

Eric Gamalinda was born in Manila,where he worked as an editor and aj o u rnalist. He currently teaches atNYU and was a recipient of a fellow-ship for fiction from the New YorkFoundation of the Arts.

Erik Goldman began his musiccareer as a member of David Hykes’

Harmonic Choir. Over the last twelve years, he has studiedWest African traditional music and dance with many p rominent teachers including Papa Ladji Camara and Epizo Bangoura.

Maxine Greene is the WilliamF. Russell Professor in theFoundations of Educationand Professor of Philosophyand Education (emeritus) atTeachers College, ColumbiaU n i v e r s i ty. Her books includeThe Public School and thePrivate Vision, ExistentialEncounters f or Te a c h e r s ,Landscapes of Learning, TheDialectic of Fre e d o m , a n dReleasing Imagination.

Lisa Gutkin is a fiddler/com-poser of Irish and Scottish tra-ditional music and co-founderof the acoustic Celtic/Wo r l dg roup W h i r l i g i g . She alsoteaches “fiddle styles” work-shops and master classes andwas Artist in Residence at NewYork University in 1998.

Linda Hasselstrom grew up on herfamily’s ranch in South Dakota. Afterreceiving her M. A. in AmericanLiterature, she earned her living byranch work, freelance writing, andteaching workshops in writing andpublishing. In 1984 she received aNational Endowment for the Art sFellowship in poetry. She is theauthor of many books of poetry andnonfiction; her latest publication isan anthology she edited with NancyCurtis and Gaydell Collier, Leaning into the Wind: WomenWrite from the Heart of the West.

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Victor Hernández Cruz is the author of Red Beans, Mainland,Tropicalization, By Lingual Wholes, and Rhythm, Content andFlavor. He was featuredon Bill Moy e r s ’s “TheLanguage of Life” seriesand has received numer-ous awards, including the Guggenheim Aw a rdand the New York PoetryFoundation Award.

Edward Hirsch is the authorof several volumes of poetry,including Wild Gratitude,which won the National BookCritics Circle Aw a rd, andEarthly Measures. He teachesat the University of Houston.

Amy Holman ia a poet and the founder of thePublishing Seminars at Poets & Writers, Inc., whereshe directs the Literary Horizons program. Hermost recent chapbook is The Cathedral of My Head.

Bob Holman’s most recent collection of poetry is The CollectCall of the Wild; CD: In with the Out Crowd. He is a founder of

the NYC Poetry Calendar, formerC o o rdinator of the St Mark’sP o e t ry Project, and for seven years was slam impressario at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He is a founder of Mouth AlmightyRecords, the all-poetry label, andproducer of the PBS series, TheUnited States of Poetry, and isVisiting Professor of English atBard College. he is currently work-ing on The World of Poetry, thefirst digital poetry anthology.

Dave Johnson ’s first collection ofpoetry is entitled Marble Shoot.He is the author of the plays AS i s t e r, A Cousin, An Au n t a n dBaptized to the Bone. He hastaught extensively in PoetsHouse’s Poetry in the Branchesprograms in community libraries.He also teaches writing at theNew School, Cooper Union,Columbia University, and throughTeachers & Writers Collaborative.

Judith Johnson is a poet, fiction-writer and performance artist. She isthe author of eight volumes of poetry,the most recent of which is The IceLizard. She is the winner of the YaleSeries of Younger Poets Prize and aNational Endowment for the Art sPoetry Fellowship.

Patricia Spears Jones is the author of The WeatherThat Kills. Her poetry hasa p p e a red in Real Things: An Anthology of Po p u l a rCulture and American Poetryand Sisterfire: An Anthologyof Black Women’s Writing.

Teresa Jordan is the radio illus-trator for The Open Road radioshow. She is also an award-winning author whose booksinclude the memoir Riding the White Horse Home a n dCowgirls: Women of theAmerican We s t , as well as two collections of We s t e rnwomen’s writings.

Kewulay Kamara comes from theKoinadugu District of Sierr aLeone and is of the KurankoBaMandeng ethnic group. His fami-ly is part of the finenu caste, whoare poets, emissaries, mediators,and masters of ceremony atimportant occasions. Their busi-ness is in the domain of memory,as repositories of communal his-tory and transmitters of culture.

Galway Kinnell’s twelve books of poetry include What aKingdom It Was, The Book of Nightmares, When One HasLived a Long Time Alone, and Imperfect Thirst. He is a former

MacArthur Fellow and hasbeen State Poet of Vermont.In 1982 his Selected Poemswon the Pulitzer Prize andthe American Book Award.He is also the editor of TheEssential Whitman f ro mEcco Press.

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Irena Klepfisz is a poet and activist in the lesbian/feminist and Jewishcommunities. She teaches Jewishwomen’s studies at Barnard Collegeand serves as editorial consultant forYiddish and Yiddish literature on theJewish feminist magazine Bridges.

The Klezmatics was formed in 1986 to perform Yiddishklezmer music with a modern aesthetic. Klezmer music dates back to the Middle Ages and is a mix of religious

and folk sourc e ssuch as Hasidicblessing dances; italso incorporatesm o d e rn influ e n c e sf rom ragtime andjazz. In the earlypart of this century,Klezmer was popu-

lar in communities on New York’s Lower East Side. Havingundergone a period when it seemed it might die out, themusic is currently enjoying a revival.

Lansana Kouyate belongs to the lineage ofBala Fassèkè Kouyate, the famous Griot ofSoundjata Keita, King of the Mandingos. Hewas born in the coastal region of Guinea.

Joakim Lartey was born in Ghana. He studied and appren-ticed with traditional musicians and folklorists. He also stud-ied biological sciences and ethnomusicology at Va s s a rCollege. He founded the band FUTU FUTU.

David Lee was the subject of a PBS documentary entitled The Pig Poet. Winner of the 1995 Western States Book Award for his latest book, My Town, Lee has also been therecipient of fellowships fromthe National Endowment for the Arts and the Nation-al Endowment for theHumanities. His pre v i o u sbooks are Days Work, ThePorcine Canticles, a n dDriving and Drinking.

B rendan Lorb e r is a poet and the editor/publisher of LUNGFULL! Magazine, anational literary journal. He was apanel member at the NuyoricanPoets Cafe Symposium on thePolitics of Race in Poetry and atthe St. Mark’s Poetry Pro j e c t ’sT h i rtieth Anniversary Symposium.

Jackson Mac Low makespoetry, music, plays, radioworks, and visual art. He has been composingand realizing performanceworks for individuals and groups since 1955 — since 1979, often with Anne Tardos. He isthe author of thirty - o n ebooks, and his work hasappeared in many period-icals and anthologies.

Anne MacNaughton c o -founded the Taos PoetryCircus in 1982 and has beena poetry activist ever since,c u rrently serving asDirector of the World PoetryBout Association and theannual Taos Poetry Circus.She is a visual artist, organ-ic farmer, playwright and afounding member of TheLuminous Animal jazz-poet-ry performance ensemble.

Wallace McRae f ro mForsyth, Montana, hasbeen a featured artist at the Cowboy PoetryGathering in Elko, Nevada.He also owns the RockerSix Cattle Company andserves as a member of theNational Endowment forthe Arts National Council.

S h a ron Mesmerteaches literatureand fiction writingat the New Schoolin New York Cityand is the Englishlanguage editor of the Japanese l i t e r a ry magazineAmerican BookJam. Her first poetry collection, Half Angel, Half Lunch,was published in 1998.

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Ed Miller, originally fro mEdinburgh, Scotland, is a folk-lore scholar as well as a per-f o rmer of traditional Scott i s hballads and folk songs. He alsoconducts Burns Suppers, whichinclude the piping in of the haggis and recitations of theworks of Robert Burns, the e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u ry poet/song-writer/folklorist who is consid-ered Scotland’s national bard.

Louis Mofsie received his Master of Arts at Hofstra Universityand taught art for 35 years. He is currently the director of theThunderbird American Dancers and is a member of the Hopiand Winnebago tribes.

Shani Mootoo is a writer, visual artist, andvideo-maker based in Vancouver, Canada.Her latest book is Cereus Blooms at Night.

Tracie Morris is a NuyoricanPoets Cafe Grand SlamChampion and the author ofC h a p - T-Her Wo n a n dIntermission. She was fea-tured in MTV’s “Unplugged”spoken word pilot and inThe United States of Poetry.

Charlie Morrow, acomposer and soundd e s i g n e r, is pre s i-dent and cre a t i v ed i rector of CharlesM o rrow Associates,Inc. Morrow hasworked on re c o rd sand events withPhilip Glass, Laurie

Anderson, and Allen Ginsberg and is the winner of a Clio award.

Eileen Myles is a poet whosebooks include School of Fish,M a x field Pa rrish, Chelsea Girls,and Not Me. In 1992 she ran awrite-in campaign for President ofthe United States. (Unfortunately,she lost the race.) She is a winnerof the Lambda Book Award.

Han Ong is a playwright,poet, fiction writer, and per-former from the Philippines.He is one of the youngestrecipients of a MacArt h u r“genius” Fellowship.

Raymond Patterson’s books of poems include ElementalBlues and 26 Ways of Looking at a Black Man. Much of hiswork focuses on singing the blues as a metaphor of grit and transcendence. A former teacher and editor, he has alsowritten a book-length poem on the life of Phyllis Wheatley,entitled Dearest Phyllis.

Larry Penn is a songwriterand singer of railroad songsas well as a teller of hobotales and railroad lore. The1995 National HoboConvention dubbed him the“Hobo Troubadour,” and hissongs have been recordedby well-known perf o rm e r s ,including Pete Seeger andJohn McCutcheon.

Willie Perd o m o is the author ofWhere a Nickel Costs a Dime. Hewas a touring member of“Nuyorican Poets Cafe Live!” andhas been featured in several PBSdocumentaries, including Words inYour Face and The United States ofPoetry. He has also appeared onBBC Radio and TV.

Rafael Pérez López is from Córdoba,Colombia. In 1995 he published abook of d é c i m a s , which includepoems about nature, love, daily life,his love for Colombia, and the art ofbeing a decimero.

Marjorie Perloff is one ofour country’s most dis-tinguished literary critics.Her many books ofessays and lett e r sinclude Radical Art i f i c eand Po e t ry On & Off the Page: Essays forE m e rgent Occasions.Currently she teaches atStanford University.

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U. Utah Phillips was raised in a fami-ly of union organizers. He began toride the rails as a teen and started toplay the ukulele to keep himself com-pany. He eventually learned to playthe guitar and soon was writingsongs about his life on the road. Hehas always been a social and politicalactivist, joining the IndustrialWorkers of the World (IWW) andfounding the Poor People’s Party. In

the 1970s he decided to make a living with his music.

Robert Pinsky is the currentUnited States Poet Laureate.His recent books include TheSounds of Po e t ry: A BriefGuide, The Handbook ofH e a rt b reak: 101 Poems ofLost Love and Sorrow, andThe Figured Wheel: New andCollected Poems, 1966 - 1996.His verse translation ofDante’s Inferno won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A pro-fessor of graduate writing at Boston University, he is also thepoetry editor of the weekly Internet magazine Slate.

Sterling Plumpp has publishedmany books of poetry, includingH ornman, Ornate with Smoke,and Mojo Hands Call I Must Go,which won the Carl SandburgLiterary Prize for Poetry in 1993.He has been a professor in theDepartment of African-AmericanStudies and English at theUniversity of Illinois at Chicagosince 1971.

Alfred Pommer was a supervi-sor for the New York City Parks Department until 1991when he started giving guidedtours through New York City.He gives tours on a re g u l a rbasis for Hofstra U n i v e r s i tyCollege of Continuing E d u c a -tion, Harvard Business SchoolAlumnus Association andSecond Stage Theater.

Peter Rabbit is best known as a found-ing light of Drop City, Libre, Taos PoetryCircus, SOMOS, and the World PoetryBout Association. He has been on thecutting edge of poetry and communi-tarian movements his whole life andwants to be remembered as the DonKing of poetry — he has relentlesslypromoted poets and their work sincethe mid-1950’s.

Eugene Redmond has been thePoet Laureate of East St. Louisfor the last twenty years. Hewon an American Book Award in1993 for his book The Eye in theCeiling: Selected Poems. He is aprofessor of English at SouthernIllinois University, where hechairs the Creative Wr i t i n gCommittee and edits the literaryj o u rnal D rumvoices Revue. I naddition to his own writing, Redmond’s other passion isshowcasing the work of Henry Dumas, an African-Americanpoet and writer who died in 1968.

Keith Roach is a poetry activist and host of the Friday NightPoetry Slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

John Roberts and TonyBarrand have performedand presented Englishfolksongs at festivals,colleges, clubs, and cof-feehouses thro u g h o u tthe United States,Canada, and Gre a tBritain. Their 1997

release, Naulakha Redux, is a collection of lyrics by RudyardKipling; it reunites the poetry with the melodic styles of tradi-tional folksong and music hall that were part of Kipling’s owncultural world.

Eddie Rosa is the director of thegroup Renacer Trovero and theNew York organizer of at rov a d or interc a m b i o w h i c hwill take place in July. It is the first c o n c u r s o to bringt rov a d ore s f rom the gre a t e rNew York metropolitan are atogether with trovadores fromPuerto Rico.

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Mark Ross s t a rted his care e rsinging in Greenwich Village inthe 1960s. He performs a widerange of music, including tradi-tional folk music, the songs ofhobos, cowboys, and loggers,and fiddle and banjo tunes. Hislatest release, Loafers Glory,recorded with Utah Phillips, wasnominated for Best Tr a d i t i o n a lFolk recording by the National

Association of Independent Record Distributors.

Jerome Rothenberg is the authorof more than fifty books of poetry,including Poems for the Game ofSilence, Poland/1931, A SenecaJournal, Vienna Blood, That DadaStrain, New Selected Poems 1970 -1985, Khurbn, The Lorca Variations,and, most re c e n t l y, Seedings &Other Poems. He has received aGuggenheim Fellowship and sever-al awards from the NationalEndowment for the Arts.

Frazier Russell is theassistant director of TheWr i t e r ’s Studio andd i rects Poets & Wr i t e r sExchange Program. Hiscollection of poems, HowWe Are Spare d , will be published by FourWay Books.

Doug Safr a n e k has per-formed and competed on thebagpipes since the 1960’s. Hewas the winner of theMedallion Competition in1990 and the Ag g re g a t eTrophy for senior amateurpiping in 1980 and 1989.

A rt u ro Santiago, Jr., a Puert oRican trovador from Vega Alta,sings d é c i m a in both Spanishand English. He has re c o rd e dwith the noted cuatrista EdwinColón Zayas.

José João dos Santos, known asM e s t re Azulão, was born inSapé, Paraiba in 1932. He movedto Rio de Janeiro in 1949, and isequally well known as a masterof the cordel tradition, and as arepentista, who improvises sungpoetry. He has published morethan 80 f o l h e t o s, travelledthroughout Brazil and presented

the tradition in Paris. He normally has sung in shirtsleeves inthe Sao Critovão fair on Sundays, and is the leader of the folkfestival called Bumba-meu-boi.

Sapphire is a poet, writer, and performing artist. Her firstbook was a collection of poetry and prose entitled AmericanDreams. Her novel Push won the Book of the Month ClubStephen Crane Award for First Fiction.

Gabriel Segura Miranda isf rom Soledad-Atlántico,Colombia, and start e dsinging as a decimero onradio programs when hewas sixteen. Along withRafael Pérez López, in 1988he represented Colombia in the first Encuentro de Trovadoresde Décimas del Caribe, which took place in Puerto Rico.

Ntozake Shange is the authorof For Colored Girls Who HaveConsidered Suicide/When theRainbow is Enuf, She isAssociate Professor of Dramaand English at Prairie ViewA&M University in Te x a swhere she is also a memberof The Texas Institute ofLetters. She is the winner ofmany awards, among them, aNational Endowment for the

Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Medal ofExcellence from Columbia University.

Nancy Shapiro has worked at Teachers& Writers Collaborative since 1976 andhas been the director since 1979. Shehas written articles on T & W’s work,and with Ron Padgett edited T h ePoint: Where Teaching and Wr i t i n gIntersect. She served on the CreativeWriting Committee for the NationalEndowment for the Arts and on anAdvancement Grant panel.

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Beau Sia’s book of poems, a nightwithout armor II: the revenge, wasi n s p i red but not endorsed by thesinger Jewel. He hails from Oklahomabut now lives in New York.

Candace Slater is a professor ofSpanish and Portuguese. Her booksinclude S t ories on a String: TheBrazilian ‘Literatura de Cord e l ’ a n dCity Steeple, City Streets: Saints’ Talesin Granada. She has earned numer-ous fellowships and awards includingthe Chancelor’s Professorship and theB a c a rdi Eminent Professorship inLatin American Studies.

Patricia Smith is anaward-winning journalist,poet, playwright and per-former. She has read herwork throughout theUnited States, Euro p eand Brazil and is a four-time champion of theNational Poetry Slam.She is a former BostonGlobe columnist and theauthor of Close to Death.

Elijah Staley (Caro l i n aSlim) was a drummer formost of his pro f e s s i o n a lcareer, playing with JohnLee Hooker, Bro w n i eMcGhee and Big Maybelle.He now concentrates onsinging the Blues, accom-panied by guitar.

Bob Suckiel is a poet, actor,and musician and hasworked for various railroadsover the past thirty years as agandy dancer (track man)and a hog head (engineer).He is also the founding mem-ber of the nonprofit organiza-tion CROSSCURRENTS.

S e kou Sundiata is apoet who writes forboth print and perform-ance, as well as musicand theater. He hasre c o rded and per-f o rmed with a widevariety of artists, includ-ing David Murray, CraigHarris, Nona Hendryx,and Ve rnon Reid. Hewas featured in the Bill Moyers PBS series on poetry, “TheLanguage of Life,” and his work appears in the anthologybased on the series. As a recording artist, he released his firstCD, The Blue Oneness of Dreams, to critical acclaim on theMouth Almighty/Mercury record label. He is a professor atthe New School in New York City, where he also produces theTalking Book Festival.

Mahamadou Salieu Susowas born into a family of traditional Gambianmusicians/historians thatextends back nearly 1,000years. He was trained toplay the 21-stringed kora(West African harp) by hisfather. He settled in theUnited States in 1989.

Anne Ta rd o s is the author of the multicultural perf o rmance workAmong Men, which was produced by the Westdeutscher Rudfunk inCologne under the title U n t e rMännern. Her polylingual books areCat Licked in Garlic and Mayg-shemF i s h . Segments from her book,Uxudo, forthcoming from Yuumba/OBooks/ghos-ti, were published in themagazines Conjunctions, The Germ,and Chain.

Yomo Toro learned to playthe c u a t ro ( P u e rto Rico’s ten-stringed guitarlike instru-ment) from his father. Bornin Guanica, Puerto Rico, he has lived in New Yo r ksince 1953 and has per-f o rmed with many art i s t s ,including Trio Los Panchos,Willie Colón, Hector Lavoe,and Ruben Blades.

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Edwin Torres recites poetry fromtongue to body to earth, fromthe Nuyorican Poets Cafe to thebeaches of Australia. From bloodto cyclone heart, his poems per-form themselves in workshopsand performances all around thealphabet. He has two books ofpoetry available: I Hear ThingsPeople Haven’t Really Said andLung Poetry.

Trío Jarocho Chalchihuecan de los Hermanos Ochoa is composed of brothers Felipe and Marcos Ochoa Reyes andthe National Heritage Fellowship winner José Gutiérrez.The group plays the traditional music of their native Veracruz, Mexico called the son jarocho. Chalchihuecan is

an indigenous wordmeaning “jade-greenbeach,” the name of abeach to the north ofVe r a c ruz. The musicof the son jaro c h ois accompanied byp re-composed d é c i-mas and improvisedsix-line sextillas.

Quincy Tro u p e is the author of five volumes of poetry,including Av a l a n c h eand Weather Reports:New and SelectedPoems. He is the win-ner of two AmericanBook Aw a rds, aPeabody Award, andthe title World Heavyweight Champion Poet.

John Tru d e l l s e rved as the National Chairman of the American IndianMovement from 1973 to1979. In 1981 he publishedhis first book of poetry, and his first album, AKAGraffiti Man, was releasedin 1986.

Sam Weiss is a noted recitalist, lec-turer, and Jewish music consultant.He is the cantor of the JewishC o m m u n i ty Center of Paramus,New Jersey, and is on the faculty ofthe Academy for Jewish Religion inNew York City.

Lois-Ann Yamanaka is theauthor of a collection ofp o e t ry and three novels,including Heads By Harry.She is the recipient of theP u s h c a rt Prizes XVIII andXIX. She has received theAsian-American LiteraryAward, the Asian-AmericanStudies National BookAw a rd, and a LannanLiterary Award.

Paul Zarzyski received hisdegree in creative writing,while at the same timelearning bareback broncoriding. Now he makes his living through poetry.His publications includeAll This Way for the ShortR i d e (1996) and B l u e -Collar Light (1998). He hasreceived the We s t e rnHeritage Award for Poetryfrom the National CowboyHall of Fame and has been a featured performerat the Cowboy PoetryGathering in Elko, Nevada, for the past twelve years.

A lso FeaturingChristin O’Keefe AptowiczJosé Enrique AyalaRolando AyalaAnselm Berrigan Guillermo ColónJunior ColónCarol ConroyManadou DiabateGuy LeCharles GonzalezKimiko Hahn HashimJeannie Hopper Kathe Izzo

Dionne KamaraDon LevTaylor Mali Angel Luis PalermoPedro PietriAngel RodriguezCarl Hancock Rux Danny ShotMahamadou Salieu SusoNat TurnerBarry WallensteinLaura Watson Saul Williams