Duriel E. Harris
‘I set about writing wanting to give you something I love’
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Poet
Duriel E. Harris is author of three poetry collections, co-founder of Call & Response—a dynamic of Black women & performance—and the avant-garde poetry/performance trio the Black Took Collective (BTC).
Obsidian Editor
Editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, a leading peer reviewed journal founded in 1975. Harris is editor in chief supporting-through publication and inquiry-global contemporary African arts.
Performance Artist
Thingification, an acclaimed one-woman show by Duriel E. Harris invigorates with the power of word and sound, taking up Funkadelic’s timely directive (“Free your mind… and your ass will follow”).
Educator
Harris is an associate professor of English in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Illinois State University, and has received many awards for her work as a poet and performer.
COLLABORATIONS
Duriel E. Harris collaborates with other artists through the project Experiments in Joy, visual artists like Scott Rankin, and with institutions like PEN America and the Poetry Foundation. She has performed at Chicago’s MPAACT Showcases, the Chicago Jazz Festival (with Douglas Ewart & Inventions creative music ensemble), The Foundry Theater (Antioch College), Links Hall (Chicago), Dixon Place (NYC), and the Wild Project (NYC), among others.
Duriel E. Harris in Speleology collaboration with Scott Rankin
MPAACT
PEN America