Michael Warr
Michael Warr is an award-winning poet and the Poetry Editor for "Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin," published by W.W. Norton. Warr received a $40,000 Creative Work Fund to produce his on-going multimedia project "Tracing Poetic Memory in Bayview Hunters Point" where he spent part of his early childhood. His family moved away from Hunters Point when he was so young that he remembers little of the neighborhood. Another ongoing project, "Two Languages / One Community" began with the translation of Michael's poems into Chinese by poet Chun Yu. They extended that collaboration to engage African Americans and Chinese speakers - who live, work, or learn together - in writing workshops to cultivate their own stories and poems, which are then translated and published. Michael is a board member of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Other poetry honors include a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, Black Caucus of the American Library Association Award, Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poets Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, and the Ragdale Foundation US - Africa Fellowship.
"We Are All The Black Boy," his first book of poems was honored by the Illinois Library Association. A frequent collaborator with musicians, visual and performing artists, his poems have been dramatized for theater, depicted on canvas, and set to original musical composition. He is the founding Executive Director of The Guild Complex, based in Chicago, and more recently the former Deputy Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where he grew up.
"We Are All The Black Boy," his first book of poems was honored by the Illinois Library Association. A frequent collaborator with musicians, visual and performing artists, his poems have been dramatized for theater, depicted on canvas, and set to original musical composition. He is the founding Executive Director of The Guild Complex, based in Chicago, and more recently the former Deputy Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where he grew up.
