Angel Nafis

Nafis grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan,[3] where she attended Huron High School.[4] She struggled through school, but graduated in 2006.[5][4] She was on the Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam Team in 2005 and 2006.[4]

She was raised Muslim.[6] Her mother died when she was young, so she was raised by her father.[5] Her father's family was from New York and Georgia.[7] Her mother's family was from Chicago and Mississippi.[7]

Nafis earned her BA at Hunter College, and is an MFA candidate in poetry at Warren Wilson College.[2][8]

Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn

Nafis is a Cave Canem fellow, the recipient of a Millay Colony residency, and the founder and curator of the Greenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon's readings and writing workshops.[2][9]

With poet Morgan Parker, she runs The Other Black Girl Collective, a Black feminist poetry duo that tours internationally.[2][8]

Her work has appeared in outlets including the BreakBeat Poets Anthology, Buzzfeed Reader, the Rumpus, Poetry, FOUND Magazine’s Requiem for a Paper Bag, Decibels, The Rattling Wall, Union Station Magazine, The Bear River Review, MUZZLE Magazine, Prelude Mag, Sixth Finch, and Mosaic Magazine.[8][10][11][12][13]

Nafis lives in Brooklyn[17] with artist, writer, and musician Shira Erlichman, with whom she is in a relationship.[2][18] Together, they toured for the ODES FOR YOU tour.[19][20][21][22][23]

In June 2020, Nafis and hundreds of other poets signed an open letter to the Poetry Foundation asking for the immediate resignation of both president Henry Bienen and board of trustees chair Willard Bunn III, as well as other demands relating to the foundation's response to the killing of George Floyd.[24]

• Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation (2016)[2][25]
• NEA Creative Writing fellowship[8]