Nicole Sealey (born 1979) is an American poet who was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and raised in

Apopka, Florida Apopka is a city in Orange County, Florida. The city's population was 54,873 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford Metropolitan Statistical Area. ''Apopka'' comes from Seminole word ''Ahapopka'' for "potato-eating ...

, US. She is the former executive director of

Cave Canem Foundation Cave Canem Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady to remedy the underrepresentation and isolation of African-American poets in Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree programs and wr ...

. 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 The PEN Open Book Award (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is an award intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the pub ...

. Her poem "Pages 22–29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure" (''

Poetry London ''Poetry London'' is a literary periodical based in London. Published three times a year, it features poems, reviews, and other articles. Profile Adopting the title of an earlier bimonthly publication which ran from 1939 to 1951, ''Poetry London' ...

'') won a Forward Prize for Poetry in October 2021. Sealey lives in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Background

Born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Sealey was raised in

, and received an MLA in Africana studies from the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

. After participating from 2005 to 2010 in

workshops led by poets such as

Marilyn Nelson Marilyn Nelson (born April 26, 1946) is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth ...

, Willie Perdomo and Patricia Smith, 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 New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Her work has appeared in ''

The Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the genera ...

'' 2018 and 2021, ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

'', and other publications. She has received fellowships and awards including from

CantoMundo CantoMundo is an American literary organization founded in 2009 to support Latino poets and poetry. It hosts an annual poetry workshop dedicated to the creation, documentation, and critical analysis of Latinx poetry. History CantoMundo was founded ...

, the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome, Italy. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History 19th century In 1893, a group of American architect ...

, the

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. In 2019, she was named a 2019–2020 Hodder Fellow at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. 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). Sealey began making erasures from the 2015

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

report detailing bias policing and court practices in

Ferguson, Missouri Ferguson is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 18,527, and is predominantly Bla ...

, three years after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police, and in October 2021, her "Pages 22–29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure" (published in ''

'') won the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. 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".

Bibliography

* ''The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named: Poems'' (

Northwestern University Press Northwestern University Press is an American publishing house affiliated with Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It publishes 70 new titles each year in the areas of continental philosophy, poetry, Slavic and German literary criticis ...

, 2016, ) * ''Ordinary Beast: Poems'' (

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York–based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquir ...

, 2017, ) * ''The Ferguson Report: An Erasure'' (

Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers ...

, 2023-08-15, )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sealey, Nicole 1979 births Living people 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century African-American writers 21st-century American women writers African-American poets American women poets People from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 21st-century American poets