University of Pittsburgh Founds Center on Black Poetry

With the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, Dawn Lundy Martin wants to make Pitt the place people go to study black poetry.

“We want to help to really put that MFA program on the map so that if you’re a black poet, the very first place that you would apply to and your top choice would be the University of Pittsburgh,” Lundy Martin said. “Right now, that’s not true.”

Pitt English professor Lundy Martin is co-founder and co-director of the CAAPP, which Pitt launched in March as a creative think tank for African-American and African diasporic poets and artists. Located on the fourth floor of the Cathedral of Learning, the Center records Pitt’s history as a home for black poetry and charts its future as a leader in the dialogue.

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