Photo: Joe Mazza

Matthew Shenoda (www.matthewshenoda.com) is the author of the poetry collections Somewhere Else, Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone, and Tahrir Suite and with Kwame Dawes is editor of Bearden’s Odyssey: Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden. Shenoda is currently dean of academic diversity, equity, and inclusion and professor of English and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago and is a founding editor of the African Poetry Book Fund.