Yona Harvey | |
|---|---|
 Harvey atBusboys and Poets, 2014 | |
| Born | 1974 (age 51–52) Cincinnati, Ohio, United States[1] |
| Occupation | Poet Professor |
| Alma mater | Howard University Ohio State University University of Pittsburgh |
| Notable works | Hemming the Water |
| Notable awards | Kate Tufts Discovery Award |
| Website | |
| www | |
Yona Harvey (born 1974)[2] is an Americanpoet and assistant professor atUniversity of Pittsburgh. She won the 2014Kate Tufts Discovery Award.[3] She is also an author ofMarvel Comics'World of Wakanda, becoming one of the first two black women writing for Marvel.
Harvey received her undergraduate degree in English fromHoward University,[4] where her classmates included writerTa-Nehesi Coates, playwrightKemp Powers, and poetDoug Kearney.[2] She went on to receive a graduate degree in English fromOhio State University and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from theUniversity of Pittsburgh.
Harvey's work has appeared injubilat,Ploughshares,Gulf Coast,Callaloo, andWest Branch.[5][6]
Harvey published her first poetry collection,Hemming the Water, with Four Way Books in 2013. She won 2014Kate Tufts Discovery Award for the collection[3] and was named a finalist for 2014Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in poetry.[7] ReviewingHemming the Water in thePittsburgh City Paper, Mike Schneider said: "At her best — such as 'Rose Lassi' — Harvey creates a feeling of something put together as well as the best machines that sew and sing, every word a necessary part of the whole humming beauty."[8] In theAsterix Journal, Lauren Russell wrote of the collection that its "shiftiness is Harvey’s particular genius. In poems that weave tenderness and violence, the expectation and the surprise, Harvey thwarts the grand cliché even as she courts it, stitching together a polyphony of voices, visions and songs in a patchwork too slippery for any matinee idol to wear."[9]
Harvey is the Tammis Day Professor of Poetry atSmith College. She was previously an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She teaches in the English department's writing program;[10] her teaching deals with African and disaporic literature and culture, digital and new media, poetry and lyric essays, and multimodal composition.[11] She is on the faculty forThe Frost Place's 2017 Conference on Poetry.[12]
Harvey has described her artistic interest as spanning genres to express "the diverse lives and experiences of Black American women through literature...the visibility and invisibility of Black women, our mental health and self-care, and the evidence of our imaginations in society as manifested in our hair, clothing, speech, parenting, decisions not to parent, and interactions with other women."[13]
Harvey wrote her first comic, an issue of "Flatbush Maiden", as an undergraduate.[14]
In 2016, Harvey became a writer for theMarvel Comics seriesWorld of Wakanda, a spinoff of theBlack Panther series;[15][16] she andRoxane Gay are the first two black women to write for Marvel.[2]Ta-Nehisi Coates, who initially connected Gay and Harvey with the Marvel franchise, said that he recommended Harvey because he felt her skill in poetry would translate well to the short-form storytelling necessary in successful comics: "That’s just so little space, and you have to speak with so much power. I thought she’d be a natural."[17] Harvey contributed an origin story forWorld of Wakanda's revolutionary leader Zenzi, and has said she was inspired by the example ofWinnie Mandela.[2]
Harvey and Coates wrote another companion to theBlack Panther series, calledBlack Panther & The Crew, set inHarlem.[18] That series was canceled due to slow sales and ran for six issues.[19]
Harvey is completing a second poetry manuscript and also working on a memoir about her younger sister's struggles with depression.[20]
Harvey is now divorced fromTerrance Hayes; the two met at aCave Canem retreat for black poets in 1996.[4] They have two children, a son and daughter.[20]
Harvey's sister died at the hospital where she went in search of psychiatric help.[20]
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