LEGACY CONVERSATIONS: Al Young, Ishmael Reed, LaTasha Diggs (The New School, Manhattan, October 2008)
Al Young and Ishmael Reed hold out the cherished sweet potato pies given them by Cave Canem fellow LaTasha Diggs.
Photo © Rachel Eliza Griffiths
OCTOBER 1, 2008 — The New School, NYC, New York
For the fifteenth program in its Legacy Conversation series, Cave Canem brought writers Al Young and Ishmael Reed together for a brief reading and dialogue about the historical and cultural influences on their work. The conversation was moderated by Cave Canem fellow LaTasha Diggs.
 Photo: Xenobia Bailey
About Cave Canem
Mission and History | Who We Are
Cave Canem is committed to the discovery and cultivation of new voices in African American poetry.
HISTORY
In 1996 poets and teachers Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady began a weeklong summer workshop/retreat designed to counter the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in writers’ workshops and literary programs. From the beginning, Cave Canem has offered a safe haven for black poets—whether schooled in MFA programs or poetry slams—to come together to work on their craft and engage others in critical debate.
Beginning as an all-volunteer effort in 1996, Cave Canem has moved swiftly to become a non-profit organization with a full-time staff and an active Board, funded through individual donations and foundation and government grants.
Our program has expanded from a summer retreat to include regional workshops, a first book prize, annual anthologies, readings and events in major cities around the United States. We are a national community of emerging and established poets, a family of writers who create, publish, perform, teach, study poetry, and support each others’ work.
Cornelius Eady on Cave Canem at the 10-Year mark (pdf) from Poets & Writers Magazine
ABOUT THE NAME
When Toi Derricotte shared her dream of a retreat for African American poets with Cornelius Eady and his wife Sarah Micklem, they agreed to work together to make it a reality. In Pompeii, Italy, they found a fitting symbol for the safe space they hoped to create: the mosaic of a dog guarding the entry to the House of the Tragic Poet, with the inscription CAVE CANEM (Beware of the Dog). It symbolized for them the role that Cave Canem could play: it would protect the poets and, by breaking the chain, it would unleash these vital new voices into the literary world.
Copyright © 1997-2008 by Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
