In 1941, Toi Derricotte was born in Hamtramck, Michigan. She earned her BA in
special education from Wayne State University and her MA in English literature
from New York University.
Her books of poetry include The Undertaker's Daughter (University of
Pittsburgh, 2011) Tender (1997) which won the 1998 Paterson Poetry
Prize; Captivity (1989); Natural Birth (1983); and The Empress
of the Death House (1978). She is also the author of a literary memoir,
The Black Notebooks (W.W. Norton, 1997), which won the 1998
Annisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Together with Cornelius Eady, in 1996, she co-founded the Cave
Canem Foundation, a national poetry organization committed to cultivating the
artistic and professional growth of African American poets.
About her work, the poet Sharon
Olds has said, "Toi Derricotte's poems show us our underlife,
tender and dreadful. And they are vibrant poems, poems in the voice of the
living creature, the one who escaped—and paused, and turned back, and saw, and
cried out. This is one of the most beautiful and necessary voices in American
poetry today."
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/107
special education from Wayne State University and her MA in English literature
from New York University.
Her books of poetry include The Undertaker's Daughter (University of
Pittsburgh, 2011) Tender (1997) which won the 1998 Paterson Poetry
Prize; Captivity (1989); Natural Birth (1983); and The Empress
of the Death House (1978). She is also the author of a literary memoir,
The Black Notebooks (W.W. Norton, 1997), which won the 1998
Annisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Together with Cornelius Eady, in 1996, she co-founded the Cave
Canem Foundation, a national poetry organization committed to cultivating the
artistic and professional growth of African American poets.
About her work, the poet Sharon
Olds has said, "Toi Derricotte's poems show us our underlife,
tender and dreadful. And they are vibrant poems, poems in the voice of the
living creature, the one who escaped—and paused, and turned back, and saw, and
cried out. This is one of the most beautiful and necessary voices in American
poetry today."
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/107