A new anthology dedicated to renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters, and Poems, for and about One Mr. Komunyakaa, will be celebrated with readings by and a conversation between Komunyakaa and MacArthur Fellow and poet Terrance Hayes on February 5 at 6 p.m. at Labyrinth Books, 122 Nassau St. The event, presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, will include introductions by Princeton Arts Fellow and poet Nicole Sealey and award-winning poet John Murillo, editors of the anthology. Cosponsored by Labyrinth Books, the event is free and open to the public; a book signing and reception will follow the conversation and reading. The bookstore is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.
Yusef Komunyakaa’s numerous books of poems include Pleasure Dome: New & Collected Poems, 1975-1999; Talking Dirty to the Gods; Thieves of Paradise, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award; Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems 1977-1989, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Magic City; Dien Cai Dau, which won the Dark Room Poetry Prize; I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head, winner of the San Francisco Poetry Center Award; Copacetic; and The Emperor of Water Clocks. Komunyakaa’s prose is collected in Blue Notes: Essays, Interviews & Commentaries. He also co-edited The Jazz Poetry Anthology and co-translated The Insomnia of Fire by Nguyen Quang Thieu. His honors include the William Faulkner Prize from the Universite Rennes, the Thomas Forcade Award, the Hanes Poetry Prize, fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Louisiana Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, where he served as a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross. In 1999, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Yusef Komunyakaa is a senior faculty member in the New York University Creative Writing Program.
Cover of Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters, and Poems, for and about One Mr. Komunyakaa. Photo credit: Wesleyan University Press
Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters, and Poems, for and about One Mr. Komunyakaa is a curated collection of essays, letters, and poems that reveal the profound impact the poet has had on poets, educators, and readers worldwide. The anthology brings together creative and critical offerings from fellow poets, former students, and other admirers. Emerging and established voices are represented by pieces that honor one of the most influential writers and teachers of the last half century. Contributors include Terrance Hayes, Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forché, Toi Derricotte, and Martín Espada, among others.
Terrance Hayes is the author of seven poetry collections: So to Speak; American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin, a finalist for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and T.S. Eliot Prize; How to Be Drawn; Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award for poetry; Muscular Music, recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Hip Logic, winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, and Wind in a Box. His prose collection, To Float in the Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism. Hayes has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Whiting Foundation, and he is a professor of English at New York University.
John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections Up Jump the Boogie and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry. His honors include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Poetry Society of Virginia’s North American Book Award, the Four Quartets Prize from the T.S. Eliot Foundation and the Poetry Society of America, and the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. His translation of Rafael Alberti’s Concerning the Angels is forthcoming from Four Way Books in spring 2025. He is a professor of English and teaches in the M.F.A. program at Hunter College.
Nicole Sealey, a 2024-26 Princeton Arts Fellow and former Hodder Fellow at Princeton, is the author of The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, winner of the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, and an excerpt from which was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. She is also the author of Ordinary Beast, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her honors include a Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library, a Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy in Rome, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, the Poetry International Prize, and fellowships from CantoMundo, Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Program in Creative Writing, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.
