By Desiree Cooper

Last week, I escaped the malaise that has settled over Detroit and drove to The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg for the annual retreat of Cave Canem, a week-long writing workshop for emerging black poets.

You may not have heard of Cave Canem (pronounced KA-veh, KA-num), but you have heard of some of the voices associated with the organization. President Barack Obama’s inaugural poet, Elizabeth Alexander, taught at Cave Canem, along with legendary poets like Sonia Sanchez and Lucille Clifton. Natasha Threthaway, who won a Pulitzer in 2007, was awarded the Cave Canem prize in 1999 for her first book Domestic Work.

The Cave Canem program was co-founded in 1996 by poets Cornelius Eady and Detroit native Toi Derricotte, who hoped that supporting, mentoring and training serious black poets would help push African-American voices into broader arenas. Almost 15 years later, their vision is being realized.

Desiree Cooper, left, with poet Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe, writer-in-residence in the Detroit public schools, and a resient at Cave Canem, an annual writing workshop for emerging black poets.

One of the huge effects of the program is being felt right in Detroit, where a number of talented poets have won a spot in the three-year program. While I was at the retreat (I am not a poet, but I served on the board for eight years), Cave Canem graduate Vivee Francis called me from the Motor City. She just won the Rona Jaffee Foundation Writer’s Award given to emerging women writers. That honor comes along with a check for $25,000.

Who says poetry doesn’t pay?

This was the first year for Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe, 29, a writer in residence at InsideOut, a non-profit that brings creative writing to the Detroit public schools. With a Filipina mother and an African-American father, Sharpe is interested in race, history and the intersections of culture.

“I went to high school in a private, suburban prep school,” said Sharpe. “There I had to fight to be who I was every day. Police regularly stopped me on the way to school. That’s why, when I graduated, I chose to live in the city. In Detroit, I may not have services like a movie theater or a mall, but I don’t have to live at war with who I am.”

Last week, Sharpe found herself fighting a different kind of war—a war to conquer the poetic form. At Cave Canem, writers are expected to produce a new poem daily. The poems are then workshopped in small groups led by a prestigious author. The process can be overwhelming and high-pressured. But most participants feel a sense of relief to be able to create free of the oppression of their racial identity.

“Writing programs so often only have two or three African Americans and no Asians,” said Sharpe. “To be in a place where I don’t have to explain one-half of myself culturally is a relief.”

The relief is especially apparent during the evening participant readings. The poems run the gamut from slams to sonnets. There was even a poem about the private lives of

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama that referenced soul food and frisky lovemaking. That one brought the house down, but the poet admitted she had never read it publicly because she was afraid that it would be misunderstood or deemed disrespectful.

Sharpe read a poem about Michigan’s youngest convicted murderer, Nathaniel Abraham. At age 11, Abraham was charged with second-degree murder and eventually served ten years in juvenile detention. He wore a gaudy, pink, pin-striped suit and fur coat to his final hearing, a signal to many that he was on his way to the gangster life. Sharpe felt that a failed urban policy, racism and poverty were equally at fault for the young man’s behavior. Her poem castigated the public who “put him down for flaunting his freedom.”

“I thought I was going to have to explain the poem when we workshopped it,” said Sharpe. “But they talked only about the craft of the poem—the use of the ‘N’ word or the order of the stanzas. I didn’t have to explain what the poem meant.”

While Cave Canem represents a broad swath of people of African ancestry, Sharpe did not always feel like people understood her Asian identity. In a poem about her mother’s cancer treatment, she mentioned the act of consuming marrow. “I was referring to the cancer, but also to my Filipina culture,” she said. “In our native Tagalog, we say that if someone is weak, they don’t have marrow. Also, we eat dishes that contain marrow.”

When someone in the group asked her if they ate human marrow. “I had to laugh about that,” she said. “We’re not cannibals!”

After the week was over, Sharpe was ready to return to Detroit with a new-found confidence. “I’m definitely a person with a fuller understanding of the fragments of myself,” she said. “I’ve spent a week with a bunch of people who feel, for whatever reason, they have been the ‘only ones.’ I’ve learned that it’s beautiful to be different.”

For more information on Cave Canem, go to www.cavecanempoets.org.

Desiree Cooper is a contributing author to the anthology Other People’s Skin: Four Novellas. A former Detroit Free Press columnist and co-host of public radio’s Weekend America, she is now a freelance writer, BBC correspondent and novelist. You can find her at www.descooper.com.