Yusef Komunyakaa’s seventeen books of poetry include Taboo, Dien Cai Dau, Neon Vernacular (for which he received the Pulitzer Prize), The Chameleon Couch, and Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker. He has received numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, and the 2011 Wallace Stevens Award. His plays, performance art, and libretti have been performed internationally and include Slip Knot, Wakonda’s Dream, Nine Bridges Back, Saturnalia, Testimony, The Mercy Suite, and Gilgamesh: A Verse Play (with dramaturgy by Chad Gracia). He teaches at New York University.