The Soul Mountain Retreat is a writer's colony in East Haddam, Connecticut, USA.
The retreat was established in 2004 with a grant from the University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences [1] by the writer and former Connecticut poet laureate Marilyn Nelson. The idea for creating the retreat grew out of the Cave Canem workshops. [2]
Soul Mountain offers fellowships to "emerging and established poets" [3] with an emphasis on supporting writers belonging to traditionally underrepresented racial or cultural groups. [4]
The non-profit organization has established partnerships with African Continuum Theater Company, Cave Canem, Kundiman, the University of Connecticut, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. [5]
Past fellows have included Samiya Bashir, Sherwin Bitsui, Kwame Dawes, LeAnne Howe, Tara Betts, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran, [6] Allison Hedge Coke, Harryette Mullen, Bushra Rehman, and Afaa M. Weaver. [7]
Albert James Young was an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. He was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2005 to 2008. Young's many books included novels, collections of poetry, essays, and memoirs. His work appeared in literary journals and magazines including Paris Review, Ploughshares, Essence, The New York Times, Chicago Review, Seattle Review, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, Chelsea, Rolling Stone, Gathering of the Tribes, and in anthologies including the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and the Oxford Anthology of African American Literature.
Thomas Sayers Ellis is an American poet, photographer and bandleader. He previously taught as an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Bennington College in Vermont, and also at Sarah Lawrence College until 2012.
Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Afaa Michael Weaver, formerly known as Michael S. Weaver, is an American poet, short-story writer, and editor. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, and his honors include a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Foundation, and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He is the Director of the Writing Intensive at The Frost Place.
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) programs and writing workshops across the United States. It is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Tara Betts is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Refuse to Disappear, which was published in June 2022 with The Word Works, Break the Habit, which was published in October 2016 with Trio House Press, and her debut collection Arc & Hue on the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press. In 2010, Essence Magazine named her as one of their "40 Favorite Poets".
Albert Flynn DeSilver is an American poet, memoirist, novelist, meditation teacher, speaker, and workshop leader. He received a BFA in photography from the University of Colorado in 1991 and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. DeSilver served as Marin County California's very first Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010. His work has appeared in more than one hundred literary journals worldwide including ZYZZYVA, New American Writing, Hanging Loose, Jubilat, Exquisite Corpse, Jacket (Australia), Poetry Kanto (Japan), Van Gogh’s Ear (France), and many others. DeSilver has taught for many years in the Teen and Family Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He is the author of several books of poems and the memoir Beamish Boy, (2012) which Kirkus Reviews called "a beautifully written memoir, poignant and inspirational".
Erica Hunt is an American poet, essayist, teacher, and organizer from New York City. She is often associated with the group of Language poets from her days living in San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but her work is also considered central to the avant garde black aesthetic developing after the Civil Rights Movement and Black Arts Movement. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Hunt worked with several non-profits that encourage black philanthropy for black communities and causes. From 1999 to 2010, she was executive director of the 21st Century Foundation located in Harlem. Currently, she is writing and teaching at Wesleyan University.
The Dark Room Collective was an influential African-American poetry collective. Established in 1988, the collective hosted a reading series that featured leading figures in Black literature.
Geffrey Davis is an American poet and professor. He is the author of Revising the Storm (2014) and Night Angler (2019). He teaches in The Arkansas Programs in Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas and lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He also serves on the poetry faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.
Yolanda Wisher is an American poet, educator and spoken word artist who focuses on the experience of being African-American. She is a graduate of Temple University and was selected as the third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2016.
Samantha Felisha Thornhill is a poet, author, educator and producer from the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
John Warner Smith is an American poet and educator. He formerly held the position as the Louisiana Poet Laureate. His poems have appeared in numerous published works.
Gary Jackson is an American educator and poet. He had received a Cave Canem and Bread Loaf fellowship and was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize in 2009.
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.
Dawn Lundy Martin is an American poet, essayist and activist. She has received the Academy of American Arts and Science's May Sarton Prize for Poetry. Martin is currently faculty at University of Pittsburgh and director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics. Martin received the 2019 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for her book Good Stock, Strange Blood published by Coffee House Press.
Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics a collection of poetry by transgender and genderqueer writers, edited by TC Tolbert and Trace Peterson. The collection itself contains some of the works by 55 different poets along with a "poetics statement", a reflection by each poet that provides context for their work. The book was published in 2013 by Nightboat Books. The collection was reviewed by Stephanie Burt on Poetry Foundation's website. It has been called "the first-ever collection of poetry by trans and genderqueer poets." An earlier anthology, “Of Souls and Roles, Of Sex and Gender," was compiled by trans activist Rupert Raj between 1982 and 1991, but remains available only in manuscript form at The ArQuives: Canada's LGBQT2+ Archives and at the Transgender Archives, University of Victoria.
Parneshia Jones is an American publisher, poet, and editor. She is the author of a 2015 poetry collection, Vessel, which won the Midwest Book Award. In 2020, Jones was appointed director of Northwestern University Press.
Aurielle Marie is an American poet and activist. Their debut collection Gumbo Ya Ya received the 2020 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry.
Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet and playwright. His writing has appeared in publications and outlets including The New York Times, Poetry Review, Rialto, Poetry London, Triquarterly Review, Boston Review, Callaloo, and Wasafiri.