Hughes, Langston: One of the most well-known poets of the twentieth century, Langston Hughes wrote over 800 poems, several works of prose, and eleven plays. His work includes The Weary Blues (1926) and a “First Book” children’s series. He coedited the The Poetry of the Negro, 1746–1949 (1949) and edited The Book of Negro Folklore (1958). Hughes has received multiple posthumous awards, and received a Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award during his lifetime. His novel, Not Without Laughter (1930), won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Miller, E. Ethelbert: E. Ethelbert Miller is an academic, "literary activist", and poet. He has written many poetry collections, including Andromeda (1974), The Land of Smiles and the Land of No Smiles (1974), The Migrant Worker (1978), Season of Hunger/Cry of Rain: Poems 1975-1980 (1982), Where Are the Love Poems for Dictators? (1986), Whispers, Secrets and Promises (1998), and How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love (2004), On Saturdays, I Santana With You (2009), When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories (2021), and others. He is also the editor of a few anthologies, and author of two memoirs, The 5th Inning (2009), and Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer (2000). Miller is the founder and director of the Ascension Poetry Reading Series, and is a board emeritus member at the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He has been honored with the Public Humanities Award, two Mayor's Arts Awards, a Columbia Merit Award, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, the O.B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, the AWP George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature, and has been inducted into the Washington, DC Hall of Fame, as well as having two days (September 28th in Washington, D.C., and May 21st in Jackson, Tennessee) named for him.

Scott, Jill: Jill Scott is a singer song-writer and actress, as well as author of The Moments, the Minutes, the Hours (Macmillan, 2005). Her studio album consist of Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1 (2000), Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 (2004), The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3 (2007), The Light of the Sun (2011), and Woman (2015). Some of the many films and television shows she has been in include Why Did I Get Married? (2007), Sins of the Mother (2010), Get on Up (2014), Hounddog (2007), With This Ring (2015), and Black Lightning (2018-2020). She has accomplished much throughout her career, including being a three-time Grammy Award-winner, among numerous other awards.

Smith, Clint: Clint Smith is a poet, writer, and scholar. He is the author of two poetry books, Above Ground (Little, Brown and Company, 2023) and Counting Descent (Write Bloody Publishing, 2016), as well as How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown and Company, 2021). His other poems and writings have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, the Harvard Educational Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and others. He currently works as a staff writer for The Atlantic. Smith has been honored with many awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonfiction, the Stowe Prize, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalist, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book, being the National Poetry Slam winner, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, New America, the National Science Foundation, the Emerson Collective, and the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.

Smith, Crystal: Crystal Simone Smith’s works consist of poetry collections and chapbooks, She has written: Routes Home (Finishing Line Press, 2013); Running Music (Longleaf Press, 2014); Wild Flowers: Haiku, Senryu, and Haiga (2016); One Window's Light (Unicorn Press, 2017), winner of the Haiku Society of America's Merit Book Award; Down to Earth (Longleaf Press, 2021); Ebbing Shore (Horse & Buggy Press, 2022); and Dark Testament (Henry Holt and Co., 2023). She is the Managing Editor and Founder of Backbone Press. She has been awarded the 2019 North Carolina Poetry Society Bloodroot Haiku Award, the Ashber Initiatives Literary Grant, and the Duke University Humanities Unbounded Fellowship.

Smith, Tracy K.: Tracy K. Smith is the author of five poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Life on Mars (2011). Her memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2017, Smith was named the U.S. poet laureate and has previously received the Stegner fellowship and the Academy of American Poets fellowship. Her other awards include a Cave Canem prize, the James Laughlin Award, and the Essense Literary Award. Smith is currently a professor at Harvard University.

Williams, Phillip B.: Phillip B. Williams is the author of two poetry collections: Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books, 2016), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Whiting Award for Poetry; and Mutiny: Poems (Penguin, 2021), winner of the American Book Award. He teaches at Bennington College, and is also the coeditor of Vinyl, an online journal. William is a graduate of Cave Canem, and has been honored with a Ruth Lilly Fellowship.

X, Mia: Margie “Mia X” Johnson is a writer, poet, actress, director, and artist based out of Newark, New Jersey. Mia specializes in and advocates for youth development, community outreach, artistic expression and empowerment, and culture creation. She’s the owner of Imagined life, an Arts Advocacy and consultancy firm, and one half of Brown Outlets, a hands-on art project with poetry on found objects and origami. She’s the host of The People’s Open Mic, the longest-running open mic in Newark, which has presented art and performance all throughout the city. She also created Hug the Block, a public art experience of poetry, visual art, live music, and Hip Hop cyphers in Newark neighborhoods. She is also a member of the artist-poet collective “A Womb of Violet” in Newark, as well as a nonprofit organization and partner art Express Newark, “Artistic Passion and Purpose.”