11/29/25
Sat,
19:00

Award Ceremony of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize
With award winner Brandon Kilbourne

Reading
Talk
← / →

© Jamila K. Grote

Cave Canem is a non-profit organization that, since its founding in 1996 in New York, has promoted the artistic development and visibility of Black poets. It sees itself as a space “by artists for artists,” where learning, experimentation, and the exchange of ideas about language, identity, and history are possible. Its goal is to make Black voices visible, to strengthen authentic forms of expression, and to overcome stereotypes.

A central instrument for achieving this is the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, which is awarded annually to Black poets who have not yet published a book of their own. The first prize was awarded in 1999 to the poet Natasha Trethewey, later a Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. Poet Laureate, who was appointed to the jury in 2025. In the following years, among the winners were Tracy K. Smith (also later Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner), Major Jackson, and Donika Kelly, whose works are today regarded as groundbreaking for African American poetry. The Cave Canem Poetry Prize honors both literary excellence and originality as well as social relevance.

This year, the poet Brandon Kilbourne (born 1986 in Lafayette, Louisiana) is being honored for his debut Natural History (Graywolf Press 2025). Juror Natasha Trethewey praises his work as “a masterful fusion of personal memory and collective history that powerfully conveys the depth and diversity of Black experience.” She describes it as “a complex meditation on wonder and devastation”, as “an elegy for the Earth.” Since Kilbourne is currently working as a research biologist and science officer at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, the award ceremony will take place this year in Berlin at the Haus für Poesie.

Please register here: Cave Canem Poetry Prize

The event will be held in English and will not be interpreted into German. A joint event organized by Haus für Poesie and Cave Canem.

The event takes place as part of "Berlin Says Thank You".

In reading & conversation Brandon Kilbourne
Moderation Babs Gons