Advance Praise for Griots:

“Griots presents evocative haibun by five accomplished poets and situates this centuries-old Japanese form within the African American storytelling tradition. The powerful imagery, insights, memories, and revelations demonstrate crucial ways the past informs the present and affirm the vital importance of keeping stories alive for future generations.”
—CE ROSENOW, author of Japanese Forms in American Poetry

“Griots: Keepers of the Story is an excellent collection of haibun by the five fine poets and members of the well-known Carolina African American Writers’ Collective. As a quintet, they distinguish themselves as a collective voice that unifies a narrative perspective through the integration of the Japanese poetic form and the African American experiences. Their voice is singular and emotional with a rich accumulation of images to vivify the language and expression. Each poem offers a moment to find delightful surprises for the heart and the eye.”
—JOHN ZHENG, author of African American Haiku


About the Authors:

DR. L. TERESA CHURCH is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of The Heron’s Nest Editor’s Choice Award (March, 2024), and Third Runner-up for The Heron’s Nest Poem of the Year (2024). Her writings have appeared in Simply Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora, Solo Café, Nocturnes: (Re)view of the Literary Arts, African American Review, North Carolina Literary Review, her chapbooks Hand-Me-Down Calicos and Beyond the Water Dance, One Window’s Light: A Collection of Haiku, Wishbone Moon, and Haiku Forum. She is an independent scholar and resides in Durham, North Carolina.

LENARD D. MOORE is the Founder & Executive Director of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective. Moore is a writer of more than 20 forms of poetry, drama, essays, and literary criticism, and has been writing and publishing haiku for more than 20 years. He was awarded the Haiku Museum of Tokyo Award in 2003, 1994, and 1983. Three of his poetry collections, Desert Storm: A Brief History (1993), Gathering at the Crossroads: The Million Man March (2003), and A Million Shadows at Noon (2023) offer full narratives unfolded entirely in haiku. He served as the first African American President of the Haiku Society of America (2008 and 2009).

SHEILA SMITH McKOY, PhD, received the 2020 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Prize in poetry. Her poetry collection, The Bones Beneath, was nominated for Pulitzer and Pushcarts awards. Co-author of One Window’s Light: A Haiku Collection, her poetry and fiction are widely anthologized. She is also author and editor of several scholarly works including Teaching Literature and Writing in Prisons, winner of the 2025 Teaching Literature Book Award. A gifted autoethnographer, she is also writer-producer of four documentary films.

CRYSTAL SIMONE SMITH is an award-winning poet and educator. She is the author of Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound (Duke University Press, 2025), winner of the 2025 Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Award, and Dark Testament (Henry Holt, 2023). In 2022, her collection of haiku, Ebbing Shore, won The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. Smith is the recipient a Duke Humanities Unbounded Fellowship and her work has appeared in numerous journals including POETRY Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Rattle, Frogpond, Modern Haiku and The Heron’s Nest. She teaches in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University.

GIDEON YOUNG is a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective, a Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina, and a former Title 1 elementary school teacher. He has served on the Carrboro Poets Council, the Orange County Arts Commission, and as the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet. His debut poetry chapbook Teacher is the First Place Winner of the 2025 Aquarius Press/Willow Books Poetry Chapbook Competition. Gideon lives in Chapel Hill, NC.