Aldon Nielsen, William J. Harris, Tyrone Williams
A.L. NIELSEN, the first recipient of the Larry Neal Award for poetry, is the author of the recent volumes Back Pages: Selected Poems, Sufferhead, Tray and Spider Cone. With Grammy-nominated Ethelbert Miller, he published the hybrid memoir/interview book MemeWars. Two of his spoken word collections are streaming on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and others: Sometimes I Wonder Can a Cigar Box Hold My Blues and More Blues, Rage and Hollers. Nielsen has taught at Howard University, San Jose State, UCLA, Loyola Marymount, Penn State and Central China Normal University. His most recent work of criticism is The Inside Songs of Amiri Baraka.
WILLIAM J. HARRIS is an emeritus professor of American Literature, African American Literature, creative writing and Jazz Studies. He has taught at the University of Kansas, Penn State University and Cornell, and other institutions. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York. Among his books are The Poetry and Poetics of Amiri Baraka (criticism), Hey Fella Would You Mind Holding This Piano a Moment (poetry), In My Dark Way (poetry) and Crooners (poetry). He is the editor of The LeRoi Jones / Amiri Baraka Reader. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including The African American Review, Callaloo, Art Forum and The Boston Review. This month (February) Poetry Magazine is featuring a special 44 page folio devoted to Harris’s work and in March the critic Adam Bradley will discuss Harris in an article about Black Poetry in T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
TYRONE WILLIAMS is the David Gray Chair of Poetry & Letters at SUNY Buffalo. He is the author of several chapbooks and seven books of poetry: c.c. (Krupskaya 2002), On Spec (Omnidawn 2008), The Hero Project of the Century (The Backwaters Press 2009), Adventures of Pi (Dos Madres Press 2011), Howell (Atelos Books 2011), As Iz (Omnidawn 2018), washpark (with Pat Clifford)(Delete Press, 2021)and stilettos in a rifle range (Wayne State University Press, 2022). A limited-edition art project, Trump l’oeil, was published by Hostile Books in 2017. He and Jeanne Heuving edited an anthology of critical essays, Inciting Poetics (University of New Mexico Press, 2019). His website is at https://www.flummoxedpoet.com/