Keep Cave Canem in the house!

When you donate to Cave Canem’s Rent Party, you help sustain the nation’s premier home for Black poetry. Your gift ensures that the many voices of African American poets will continue to be heard.

 

Every year, Cave Canem staff raises money from foundations and government sources for programs that are transforming the literary landscape and changing individual ives: an annual retreat for 54 emerging African American poets, community workshops that have served hundreds since 1999, the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, New Works readings, and many more events and opportunities. Unfortunately, the reality is that grants cover only a small percentage of overhead, including rent, the single most challenging line item in our budget.

 

 

While the spirit of Cave Canem is evident throughout New York City and beyond, maintaining a centralized hub is vital to the work we do. Our headquarters in DUMBO, Brooklyn has been blessed by the presence of poets at all career stages, and many a poem (perhaps one of yours) has been conceived within these walls.  Our airy loft overlooking the East River is a welcoming, safe space for workshops, readings, research and conversations, and serves as a gallery for exhibiting visual art. For staff, fellows, board members and volunteers, having a physical site to plan, fundraise and prepare programs is key. Like most rental space in New York City, however, it comes with a hefty price tag.

 

 

Rent parties began in Harlem in the 1920s when cash-strapped Uptown residents devised creative ways to pay discriminatory rental rates on low salaries. Party hosts opened their homes, and in exchange for a small cover charge, prepared food and provided live entertainment. Together, party goers defeated eviction, while eating, drinking, dancing and socializing for much less than what they’d pay for a night on the town. Everybody won!

What We Need & What You Get

Cave Canem’s coast-to-coast Virtual & Actual Rent Parties revive the Harlem-style rent party with poetry at its core! Join the party and help us raise $20,000 to defray our $45,000 rent bill in 2014. When you give, you will you have our deep gratitude, receive distinctive perks, and most importantly, have the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a positive difference to the future of American poetry. 

CCVRP – SOUTH perks include: 

 

• “Dog Print” acknowledgement on your facebook wall and thank you poem email. 
• Poetry from southern Cave Canem fellows – shirlette ammons, Stephanie Pruitt, Remica L. Bingham-Risher, Amanda Johnston, L. Lamar Wilson, M. Ayodele Heath, Jonathan Moody, Cedric Tillman, Kwoya Fagin Maples and Bianca Spriggs. 
• New music by blues funk musician shirlette ammons. 
• Unique mason jars full of creative goodness. 
• A limited broadside featuring new artwork by Wura-Natasha Ogunji.
• Poetry over the phone from Cave Canem founder Cornelius Eady and U.S. Poet LaureateNatasha Trethewey. 
• *Allow 2-3 days for delivery of $10 – 24 perks. Allow two weeks for delivery of $25 and up perks. 

History 

Cave Canem Foundation is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets. A 501(c)(3) non-profit service and presenting literary organization with administrative and programming headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, Cave Canem was founded in 1996 by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in MFA programs and writing workshops.

Over the past 17 years, the organization has grown from an initial gathering of 26 poets to become an influential movement with a renowned faculty and a high-achieving national fellowship of 371. Cave Canem poets are influencing the literary landscape and inspiring the genesis of such organizations as Kundiman,a national organization dedicated to the creation and cultivation of Asian American poetry, and CantoMundo, which provides a space for the creation, documentation and critical analysis of Latina/o poetry.

With an annual week-long writing retreat, community based workshops, publications, nationally based readings and Poets on Craft conversations, Cave Canem programs bring previously marginalized voices to the center of cultural awareness and the popular imagination. Cave Canem annually engages approximately 250 writers with readings, panels and opportunities to lead community-based workshops in New York City and Pittsburgh, which have served 600 emerging poets of color since 1999. We partner with six prestigious presses to deliver a first-book prize (13 collections to date), a second-book prize and anthologies; together, our publications reach a national readership of thousands.

 

 

Cave Canem enjoys over 20 local, regional and national cultural partnerships, among them the Brooklyn Book Festival, where we are a Programming Partner; the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, where we are a Literary Partner; and five collaborative residencies at such sites as the Millay Colony for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. Our social media network includes over 7,440 Facebook fans and friends, 2,846 Twitter followers, 13,420–plus YouTube views and 51,000 annual website visits.

Awards garnered by fellows include, among many others, the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, Whiting Writers’ Award, NAACP Image Award, the Academy of American Poets’ Laughlin Award, National Poetry Series Selection, Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and Guggenheim and Ruth Lilly Fellowships. Fellows have 180+ books in print and have gained significant footholds in academic positions around the country. Faculty member Elizabeth Alexander was named President Obama’s Inaugural Poet in 2008; faculty members Terrance Hayes and Nikky Finney won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010 and 2011, respectively; 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Tracy K. Smith received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; and Natasha Trethewey, faculty member and inaugural winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, currently serves as U. S. Poet Laureate.