Octavia McBride-Ahebee’s work presents human relationships within the context of global inequality. Her poetry collections include Assuming Voices (2003) , Where My Birthmark Dances (2011) and most recently Praise Song for the Gravediggers (2019). Her work has appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Rigorous, For Harriet, Yellow Medicine, Badilisha Poetry Exchange, International Quarterly, The Journal of the National Medical Association, and other journals. It has been anthologized in Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS from the Black Diaspora, and Under Our Skin: Literature of Breast Cancer. Her poetry has also been included in the Poetry Ink Anthologies honoring Sonia Sanchez and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Sekai'afua Zankel is the author of Behind These Eyes/Optical Poems. She was awarded the Frank Moore Poetry Prize in 2008; and the Leeway Foundation Art and Change grant in 2009 to present her verse play Miss Pearl’s Spirit: In the Mysteries of Mirrors. She played the role of Frances W. Harper in A Brighter Coming Day at the Moonstone Arts Center, the African American Museum, and Mother Bethel AME Church. Her poems have been published in various magazines and journals including CAP, Poetry Ink, and Apriary.

Room: The Heim Center for Cultural and Civic Engagement (1st floor)