Nicole Sealey
Born1979 (age 44–45)
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
EducationUniversity of South Florida (MLA in Africana studies)
New York University (MFA in creative writing)
OccupationPoet
Notable workThe Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named;
"Pages 22–29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure"
Awards2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem

Nicole Sealey (born 1979)[1] is an American poet who was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida, US.[2] She is the former executive director of Cave Canem Foundation.[3] She won the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize for The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, and her collection Ordinary Beast was a finalist for the 2018 PEN Open Book Award.[4] Her poem "Pages 22–29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure" (Poetry London) won a Forward Prize for Poetry in October 2021.[5] Sealey lives in Brooklyn, New York.[2]

Background

Born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Sealey was raised in Apopka, Florida, and received an MLA in Africana studies from the University of South Florida.[6] After participating from 2005 to 2010 in Cave Canem Foundation workshops led by poets such as Marilyn Nelson, Willie Perdomo and Patricia Smith,[7] Sealey decided at the age of 32 to commit to a career as a poet, going on to earn an MFA degree in creative writing at New York University.[6][8] Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2018 and 2021, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and other publications.[9]

She has received fellowships and awards including from CantoMundo, the Cave Canem Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.[2] In 2019, she was named a 2019–2020 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.[2] From 2017 to 2019 she was the Executive Director at the Cave Canem Foundation, and was the curator for a special series of Poem-a-Day (August 31–September 11, 2020).[2]

Sealey began making erasures from the 2015 United States Department of Justice report[10] detailing bias policing and court practices in Ferguson, Missouri, three years after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police,[1] and in October 2021, her "Pages 22–29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure" (published in Poetry London)[11] won the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.[12] The judges of the prize referred to Sealey's use of the report's "stifling obfuscations" to create "new moments of lyrical beauty and contemplation", and called her work "a poem of resonant cultural and social value".[13]

Bibliography

  • The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named: Poems (Northwestern University Press, 2016, ISBN 9780810133129)
  • Ordinary Beast: Poems (Ecco Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0062688811)
  • The Ferguson Report: An Erasure (Knopf, 2023-08-15, ISBN 978-0593535998)

References

  1. 1 2 "Nicole Sealey | Forward Prizes Alumni". Forward Arts Foundation. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Nicole Sealey". Poets.org. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Nicole Sealey Appointed Cave Canem Foundation Executive Director". Cave Canem Foundation. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  4. ↑ Willingham, Katie (August 30, 2018). "Poetry is hope: A Conversation with Nicole Sealey". The Adroit Journal. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  5. ↑ Bayley, Sian (25 October 2021). "Kennard, Femi and Sealey win Forward Prizes for Poetry". The Bookseller. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  6. 1 2 "Nicole Sealey". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
  7. ↑ "Nicole Sealey In conversation with Forward Arts Foundation". Forward Arts Foundation. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  8. ↑ Kane, Lauren (February 22, 2018). "Every Poem Is a Love Poem to Something: An Interview with Nicole Sealey". The Paris Review. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  9. ↑ "Nicole Sealey". The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. June 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  10. ↑ "Department of Justice Report Regarding the Criminal Investigation Into the Shooting Death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. March 4, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  11. ↑ Sealey, Nicole (Spring 2021). "Pages 22–29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure". Poetry London. No. 98. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  12. ↑ "Forward Prizes for Poetry Winners Announced". Forward Arts Foundation. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  13. ↑ Flood, Alison (October 24, 2021). "Luke Kennard wins Forward poetry prize for 'anarchic' response to Shakespeare". The Guardian.
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