Little Black Pearl
Tyehimba Jess cut his teeth on the slam circuit, a mark he wears proudly. On the page, leadbelly, his first book, is daunting; spoken it is a tour de force. leadbelly (Verse Press, 2005), is a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Tyehimba also won the 2001 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry for 2000/2001, and the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award.
Tyehimba is Associate Professor of Creative Writing, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Co-sponsored with Little Black Pearl
