Ed Pavlic is the author of six collections of poems and two critical texts. His newest works are Who Can Afford to Improvise?: James Baldwin and Black Music, the Lyric and the Listener, Let’s Let That Are Not Yet: Inferno, and Visiting Hours at the Color Line. He teaches at the University of Georgia.

Terrance Hayes is a poet.

Kevin Young is the author of ten books of poetry and prose, most recently Book of Hours, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Young’s The Grey Album won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2012, and finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Elizabeth Alexander is the author of two essay collections and six books of poetry, including Crave Radiance and American Sublime, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2009, she delivered her poem “Praise Song for the Day” at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Her many awards and honors include the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry and the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. She is the chair of the Department of African American Studies at Yale University.