Jamaal May was born in 1982 in Detroit, MI where he has taught poetry in public schools and worked as a freelance audio engineer and touring performer. His first book, Hum, received the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books and an NAACP Image Award nomination. Other honors include the Spirit of Detroit Award, an Indiana ReviewPoetry Prize and fellowships from Cave Canem, Frost Place, Bucknell University, and Kenyon College. Recent poetry can be found in The Believer, The New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Best American Poetry 2014, and the anthology Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poems for the Next Generation(Viking/Penguin, 2015). Recent prose appears online from Poets and Writers Magazine as well as Poetry. From Detroit he serves as Co-Poetry Editor for Solstice, teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program, and co-directs the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook and Video Series with poet Tarfia Faizullah.