In conversation with Herman Beavers

M. Nzadi Keita is the author of the poetry collection Brief Evidence of Heaven, a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Prize that explored the life of Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ first wife. Her other poems and essays have appeared in such publications as A Face to Meet the Faces: A Persona Poetry Anthology, Killens Review of Arts and Letters, and Poet Lore. She formerly taught creative writing, American literature, and Africana studies at Ursinus College, and was an adviser to the award-winning documentary BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez and to Mural Arts Philadelphia. Keita’s latest collection of poetry, Migration Letters, is a reflection on Black working-class identity and culture from the 1960s to now.

A professor of English and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Herman Beavers teaches 20th Century and Contemporary African American literature and poetry writing. He is the author of the scholarly monograph Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison, the poetry chapbook Obsidian Blues, and his poems have appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Versadelphia, and The American Arts Quarterly, among other publications. 

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