Afaa M. Weaver

Afaa Michael Weaver (born 1951 Baltimore, Maryland) formerly known as Michael S. Weaver, is an American poet, short story writer and editor. He is author of numerous poetry collections and his honors include a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Foundation, and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He is the Director of the Writing Intensive at The Frost Place.^[1]

Life

Born in Maryland, he studied two years at the University of Maryland. Then he entered the world of factory life alongside his father and uncles and remained a factory worker for fifteen years. He started 7th Son Press and Blind Alleys, a literary journal. He graduated from Brown University on a fellowship, with an M.A, and Excelsior College with a B.A. He taught at National Taiwan University and Taipei National University of the Arts as a Fulbright Scholar, and was a faculty member at the Cave Canem Foundation's annual retreat. In addition, he was the first to be named an elder of the Cave Canem Foundation. He also studied Chinese language at the Taipei Language Institute in Taiwan.^[2]

He teaches at Simmons College, and is director of the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center.^[3] He is Chairman of the Simmons International Chinese Poetry Conference.^[4] Tess Onwueme, the Nigerian playwright, gave him the Ibo name "Afaa," meaning "oracle," while Dr. Perng Ching-hsi has given him the Chinese name "Wei Yafeng."^[5]

His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including Callaloo.^[6]

Honors and awards

• 2014 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award^[7]
• 2002 Fulbright Scholarship^[8]
• 1985 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship^[9]
• 1998 Pew Fellowships in the Arts

Published works

Full-Length Poetry Collections

• "The City of Eternal Spring" (Pitt Poetry Series, 2014)
• "A Hard Summation" (Central Square Press, 2014)
• "The Government of Nature" (Pitt Poetry Series, 2013)
• The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007)
• Multitudes. Sarabande Books. 2000. ISBN 978-1-889330-41-9. 
• The Ten Lights of God. Bucknell University Press. February 2000. ISBN 978-0-8387-5434-4. 
• Timber and Prayer: The Indian Pond Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995)
• My Father’s Geography (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)
• Water Song. University Press of Virginia. 1985.  Callaloo series
• Sandy Point. Engravings Rosalyn Richards. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: The Press of Appletree Alley. 

Plays

• Rosa was produced in 1993 at Venture Theater in Philadelphia

Anthologies Edited

• Afaa Michael Weaver, ed. (2002). These hands I know: African-American writers on family. Sarabande Books. ISBN 978-1-889330-72-3. 

Anthology Publications

• Arnold Rampersad, Hilary Herbold, eds. (2006). "My Father's Geography". The Oxford anthology of African-American poetry. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 978-0-19-512563-4. 
• Mona Eliasson, ed. (1999). "Eighteen". Teaching about Violence Against Women. Feminist Press. ISBN 978-1-55861-211-2. 
• Gloria Naylor, ed. (1997). Children of the night: the best short stories by Black writers, 1967 to the present. Little, Brown and Co. ISBN 978-0-316-59923-8. 
• Maria M. Gillan, Jennifer Gillan, eds. (1999). Identity lessons: contemporary writing about learning to be American. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-027167-6. 

References

Sources

• Library of Congress Online Catalog > Afaa M. Weaver

External links

• Author's Website
• Author Profile: Ellen Steinbaum (February 5, 2006). "A weaver of disparate strands". The Boston Globe. 
• Audio: The Cortland Review > Issue 32, June 2006 > Zombie Dance/Tapping The Blood Root by Afaa M. Weaver
• Criticism: Ploughshares > Fall 2002 > A Review by Afaa M. Weaver of Leaving Saturn by Major Jackson