T’ai Freedom Ford

t’ai freedom ford is the author of the poetry collections & more black (Augury Books, 2019) and how to get over (Red Hen Press, 2017), which won the Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry contest. Her work has been published widely and appears in several anthologies, including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket Books, 2015) and Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, 2018). She toured with the queer women of color literary salon, The Revival, in 2012 and 2013, appearing in the full-length documentary about the project of the same name. Courtney Gillette, reviewing how to get over it for the Lambda Literary Review, remarked “it’s an ambitious collection in conversation with everything from Keats to Kanye, from history to heartache, always bold and tender in the attention it pays to its subjects. … The collection ricochets from meditations on ancestry to pop culture references, with never a line or sentiment out of place.”

freedom ford has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Center for Fiction, the Poetry Project, and the Jerome Foundation, and awards from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. She is a high school English teacher in New York City and lives in Brooklyn, where she is an editor at No, Dear Magazine.