Angel Nafis
Adjunct Associate Professor
Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Angel Nafis is a writer and the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/ New School Poetics, 2012). She earned her BA at Hunter College and her MFA in poetry at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-day, BLACK FUTURES, The Rumpus, Poetry Magazine, Buzzfeed Reader and elsewhere.
Nafis is a Cave Canem fellow, the recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, a Creative Writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship. She is the founder and curator of the Greenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon. With poet Morgan Parker, she is The Other Black Girl Collective, an internationally touring Black Feminist poetry duo. She teaches at the low-residency MFA program at Randolph College and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Photo by Justin J Wee.
- MFA (Poetry, Creative Writing) Warren Wilson College
- B.A. (English, Creative Writing Concentration) Hunter College
- Washtenaw Community College
- Jerome Hill Artists Fellowship 2023
- National Endowment of the Arts Fellow 2017
- Ruth Lilly Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow from the Poetry Foundation 2016
- Millay Colony for the Arts Fellow 2016
- Cave Canem Poetry Graduate Fellow 2014
- National Poetry Slam Semi-Finalist
Books
- Uncommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning and Living (anthology), Red Beard Press, 2015
- The BreakBeat Poets Anthology, Haymarket Books, 2015
- BlackGirl Mansion, Red Beard Press, 2012
Poems (2011-2023)
- “Poem at the Top of a Mountain”, The Slowdown
- “Solo” & “Queen Of Versailles”, The Indiana Review
- “King of Kreations”, Academy of American Poets
- “Omen to Get Your Ass Up”, them
- “Woo Woo Roll Deep”, Buzzfeed Reader
- “ANGEL NAFIS”, Poetry Magazine
- “Ghazal for Becoming Your Own Country”, Poetry Magazine
- “Ode to Lois”, Prelude Magazine
- “Ode to Shea Butter”, Prelude Magazine
- “Ode to Voicemail”, Sixth Finch
- “Why R&B First Thing In The Morning, Why R&B Above All”, The Rumpus
- “Gravity”, Poetry Magazine
- “Angel’s Heart Clowns the Ocean”, Muzzle Magazine