Cheryl Boyce-Taylor

Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is a poet and teaching artist. She earned an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine and an MSW from Fordham University. Her collections of poetry include Raw Air (2000), Night When Moon Follows (2000), Convincing the Body (2005), and Arrival (2017), which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. Mama Phife Represents (2021) was awarded the 2022 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry by The Publishing Triangle.

The founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series, Boyce-Taylor is also a poetry judge for the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. She has led workshops for Cave Canem, Poets & Writers, and the Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center. Her poetry has been commissioned by The Joyce Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts for Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company.

Boyce-Taylor is the recipient of the 2015 Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award and a VONA fellow. Her life papers and portfolio are stored at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.