Winner of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry, Aracelis Girmay is an assistant professor of poetry at Hampshire College. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007), and Kingdom Animalia, winner of the 2011 Isabella Gardner Award from BOA Editions. Girmay is a Cave Canem Fellow and an Acentos board member. Her next book of poetry, the black maria is forthcoming from BOA Editions in 2016.