born in Brooklyn, New York, she is, undeniably, the most well  –  known female Beat poet. She attended Swarthmore College, then moved to Greenwich Village to become part of the Bohemian intellectual culture. She is the author of 43 books of poetry and prose. Loba: Books I & II  was published in the Penguin Poets Series in August 1998. Her autobiographical memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman, was published by Viking in April 2001. Recent poetry chapbooks include Towers Down (with Clive Matson), published by Eidolon Editions in 2002; The Ones I Used to Laugh With, Habenicht Press, San Francisco, 2003, and TimeBomb, Eidolon Editions 2006. Her work has been translated into over 20 languages. She has received writing grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the National Poetry Association, and an honorary doctorate from St. Lawrence University. In 2002, she was one of three finalists to be named the first Poet Laureate of California. She has taught poetry and spirituality courses at New College of California, California College of Arts and Crafts, and the San Francisco Art Institute.  She has lived in San Francisco since 1968 where, in 2009, she was named Poet Laureate.

was born in Beijing, China in 1947 and grew up in Massachusetts. Among her books are The Heat Bird (Burning Deck 1983) and Random Possession, (both recipients of American Book Awards); Empathy (Station Hill, 1989), (PEN West Award); Sphericity (Kelsey Street, 1993); Endocrinology (in collaboration with artist Kiki Smith, winner of the Asian American Literary Award for 1997); Four Year Old Girl (Kelsey Street 1998); and Nest (Kelsey Street, 2003). I Love Artists: New Selected and Poems, was published by the University of California Press in 2006. She lives in New Mexico.

his most recent books include Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems; a collection of art writings, For the Ordinary Artist; Not an Exit, with drawings by Léonie Guyer; and another words – and – images collaboration, Repeat After Me, with watercolors by John Zurier. He is Professor Emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute, a contributing editor (poetry) for artcritical.com, and a corresponding editor for Art in America. He was the Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture for 2006 and awarded the Goldie for Literature by the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 2009.

born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the U.S.A., the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. He is renowned as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s that became, though short – lived, the virtual blueprint for a new American theater aesthetics. Blues People (1963) and the play Dutchman (1963) practically seeded “the cultural corollary to black nationalism.” Other titles range from Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones (1979), to The Music (1987), a fascinating collection of poems and monographs on Jazz and Blues authored by Baraka and his wife Amina, and his boldly sortied essays, The Essence of Reparations (2003). He has taught at Yale, Columbia, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He lives in Newark with his wife, poet and author, Amina Baraka. His awards and honors include an Obie, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for contributions to the arts, Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants, Professor Emeritus at the State university of New York at Stony Brook, and the Poet Laureate of New Jersey.