Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of one of the first Black chemists in the tire industry. Dove treats historical events with a personal touch, for example, addressing her grandparents’ lives and marriage in early 20th-century Ohio and the battles and triumphs of the Civil Rights era.

Poet Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union city of Odessa. He lost most of his hearing at the age of four after a doctor misdiagnosed mumps as a cold, and his family was granted political asylum by the United States in 1993, settling in Rochester, New York.

Terrance Hayes is a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1971 and educated at Coker College where he studied painting and English and was an Academic All-American on the men's basketball team. After receiving his MFA from the University of Pittsburg in 1997, he taught in southern Japan, Columbus, Ohio, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Danez Smith was born St. Paul, Minnesota. They are the author of Don't Call Us Dead (2017), a finalist for the National Book Award. Their writing has appeared in many magazines and journals, such as Poetry, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Kinfolks. In poetry slam, Smith is a 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam finalist.

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She earned her BA from the University of New Mexico and MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Harjo draws on First Nation storytelling and histories, as well as feminist and social justice poetic traditions, and frequently incorporates indigenous myths, symbols, and values into her writing.

"Make a copy" of the following activity and use to takes notes over the poems you read.