For the 2024 A Home for the Heart to Live In, CityLit Project partnered with CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth to offer the opportunity for student journalist Amir Muhammad to attend and cover the event. Held on Sunday, December 8, 2024, this year’s A Home for the Heart to Live In featured poets Danez Smith and Reginald Dwayne Betts and presented 12 regional Cave Canem fellows. This free event was curated by Reginald Harris.
Please enjoy Amir’s write-up below, accompanied by photos from our event photographer, Mollye Miller.
The Power of Poetry: An Afternoon to Remember With Cave Canem Poets
On Sunday, Dec. 8. CityLit Project brought Baltimore together for an evening of poetry and to celebrate often unsung Black poets at the Motor House with the event A Home For The Heart To Live In featuring Cave Canem Poets.
Cave Canem is a nonprofit dedicated to combating the underrepresentation and isolation of African-American poets in the literary landscape by removing financial barriers for Black poets with literary prizes and fellowships.
Reginald Harris, a Cave Canem fellow and curator of the event, in his opening statement, said, “There are so many Black poets that you may not know that have changed the face of American literature,”
The event described as “a family reunion” had a ring of truth to it. The second poetry lovers walked into the room, they were greeted by warm, welcoming people. The poets who were going to be reading that evening were willing to talk to anyone who would listen before they got on the stage to recite their work. After seeing the warmth of the poets and community, all of the nervousness I felt from being in an unfamiliar space vanished. When Abdul Ali, one of the many poets, said, “It’s good to be back at the family reunion.” I felt like I was welcome.
Twelve poets came to the stage and read their work to a packed room. None of them missed a beat. The poems were funny, relatable, historic, emotional, and inspirational.
Each performance was wonderful; three of them, however, truly stood out as the most memorable.
Teri Ellen Cross Davis did a spectacular job tackling topics related to our sojourn in America and how decades of struggle have led to barely any change. Her poetry was a masterful call to action for the kind of change needed in this nation. Calling out America could be seen as radical, but it is always necessary to shine the light of truth on these issues.
Alan King, with “Nap Rides”, surprisingly had one of the best poems of the evening, in my opinion, a story about how his daughter wasn’t easy to put to sleep when she was younger. That poem made me think back to the drives I had with my dad over the years and caused me to appreciate them even more than I already do.
Brian Gilmore had to have been the funniest poet I saw that evening. Even when he was making an ode to someone from his past, he could make the memory something fun and okay for the audience to laugh at while not making them feel bad. The send-off line of the poem, “Party hard…” was an amazing way to close the poem because it, in some ways, felt like we had lived through that moment ourselves.
Poetry can sometimes be difficult to understand. Hayes Davis, one of the twelve poets, a Silver Spring resident, and an English teacher, gave some simple advice on how to digest poetry best.
“Listen with an open ear,” said Davis.
Davis continued by saying that you have to be open to receive the message. He also suggested reaching out to the poets themselves to ask what they meant.
A Home for the Heart to Live In with Cave Canem poets will return next year the first Sunday in December, for those on the fence about attending, Davis offered it as an opportunity to have a more intimate experience with poetry and poets. It’s a chance to not only make a connection with poets but make a deeper connection with our own experiences and ourselves.
“You will never leave a Cave Canem reading without feeling touched in some way,” Davis said.
CityLit invited guest author Amir Muhammad to write about his poetry experience for our year-end Cave Canem event at the Motor House. A few edits have been made for clarification. Amir is in 11th grade at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He enjoys writing, gaming, and reading, and writes for CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth. https://charmlitmag.org/