Lauren K. Alleyne is an award-winning poet. She is the author of Difficult Fruit, and Honeyfish, and has published her work widely. She is Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and Associate Professor of English at James Madison University.

Frank X Walker is a cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets, a Cave Canem fellow, and Editor of PLUCK!. The author of nine collections of poetry and a recipient of a Lannan Foundation Poetry Fellowship, Walker is Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky.

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon is the author of Open Interval, a 2009 National Book Award finalist, and Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, as well as Poems in Conversation and a Conversation, a chapbook collaboration with Elizabeth Alexander.

Ross Gay is the author of the poetry collections, Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, and the essay collection, The Book of Delights. He teaches at Indiana University.