Cave Canem Reading at Mizzou

As part of the University of Missouri's Black History Month celebration, award-winning poet Cornelius Eady, MU professor of English and founder of the black poets organization Cave Canem, reads his work with special guest Cave Canem poets Natasha Ria El-Scari, Aisha Sharif and Glenn North. Two finalists from the MU student open-mic spoken word competition also will perform.

The reading begins at 7 p.m. in Stotler Lounge III, Memorial Union, on the University of Missouri campus.

CORNELIUS EADY

Cornelius Eady is a poet, playwright and songwriter. He is a professor of English and the Miller Family Chair at the University of Missouri. His poetry collections include Hardheaded Weather (Marian Wood/Putnam, 2008) and Brutal Imagination (Marian Wood/Putnam 2001), which was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Awards. With the poet Toi Derricotte, he is co-founder of the Cave Canem Foundation.


GLENN NORTH
Glenn North is currently a poet in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is a Cave Canem fellow, a Callaloo creative writing fellow and a recent recipient of the Charlotte Street Generative Performing Artist award. Glenn provided the poetic narration for the award-winning film short May This Be Love and had a guest appearance on the popular ABC family drama Lincoln Heights. He is also the Poet-in-Residence of the American Jazz Museum, where he facilitates poetry writing and performance workshops and hosts the popular monthly open-mic poetry competition Jazz Poetry Jams. 

AISHA SHARIF
Aisha Sharif received her MFA in poetry from Indiana University in Bloomington. Much of her poetry and nonfiction explores how religious and gender identities intersect. Her poetry has appeared in Muslim Wakeup!, Touchstone Literary Journal,  Poemmemoirstory, Callaloo and Mythium. She is a proud Cave Canem fellow and teaches English at Park University and Johnson County Community College. She currently lives in Merriam, Kansas.

NATASHA RIA EL-SCARI
Natasha Ria El-Scari is a spoken-word artist and writer, a member of the Black Poets Collective of Kansas City, a Cave Canem fellow and a poetry workshop facilitator. Her writing has been published in Black Magnolias, I Woke Up and Put My Crown On: The Project of 76 Voices, Family Pictures and Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Emcees and Poets. She has has performed at numerous Kansas City area venues and at universities throughout the United States. She holds a master’s degree in liberal studies from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.