makalani bandele was raised in Louisville, KY, and resides now in the nation’s capital. He is an Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem fellow. In addition to Cave Canem, he has also received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, Obsidian Foundation, Kentucky Arts Council, Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a BA in the Program of Liberal Studies, as well as a graduate of Shaw University with a Master of Divinity in Biblical Studies, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Kentucky. His work has been published in several anthologies: Mid/South Sonnets, Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature, and Circe’s Lament: An Anthology of Wild Women Poetry are a couple of examples. Known for his experimental poetics, makalani was the winner of the 2023 Miracle Monocle Innovative Writing Award, and the 2021 First Prize in Experimental Poetry Contest from the Connecticut Poetry Society. His essay and poems have been widely published in print and online journals, African American Review, Sou’wester, DIAGRAM, Prairie Schooner, ANMLY, and Washington Square Review to name a few. Most recently works from his latest manuscript, blk spectrum: an unmasking have or will appear in Diode, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, and Indianapolis Review. bandele is the author three other full-length collections of poems (jopappy & the sentence-makers are) eponympus as funk, winner of Futurepoem Books’ 2022 Other Futures Award (Futurepoem books, 2024), under the aegis of a winged mind, winner of the 2019 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize (Autumn House Press, 2020) and hellfightin’, published by Willow Books/Aquarius Press in 2011.