OUT OF YEARNING Book Launch at the American Poetry Museum

Celebrate the debut chapbook from poet Cai Sherley. A featured reading including the author, Taylor Johnson Come celebrate Cai Sherley’s debut chapbook, Out of Yearning . Sherley navigates gender transition, Black ancestry, family, music, grief, and ecstatic self-discovery through forms as inventive as their vision. Along with the author this evening will feature readings from Taylor Johnson, Marina Avery, and Kenny Carroll. Another cozy evening at the American Poetry Museum Cai Sherley CAI SHERLEY (he/him) is a Black trans poet-educator with roots in Boston, Massachusetts. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his work can be found in Beestung, Best New Poets, swamp pink, Peach Mag, and Tupelo, among others, as well as the anthology I Feel Nothing Like Good: Poets Against Genocide. He has found homes at The Watering Hole, Brooklyn Poets, Tin House, Lambda, and the Chicago Poetry Center, and is a member of both the Crossroads Writers Collective and Trans Corner Poets. His work centers Black trans life, past and present, in the United States. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU and lives in Western Massachusetts. Taylor Johnson Taylor Johnson is from Washington, DC. He is the author of Inheritance (Alice James Books, 2020), and his work appears in The Paris Review , The Baffler, Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and received the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, as well as a 2024 Whiting Award for Poetry. He lives in New Orleans. In January 2021, Johnson was a guest blogger for Harriet. Marina Avery Marina Robinson is a trans poet and punk from Orlando, and a recent MFA graduate from the University of Pittsburgh. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, Lambda Literary, The Watering Hole, and others. Previously, she was the recipient of two Pushcart nominations, second in the 2025 Queer Palette Poetry prize, and runner up at the 2024 Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh contest. Her poems can be found in Callaloo, Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Seventh Wave, and others. You can find her wherever the music is loudest. Kenny Carroll Kenny Carroll is a writer and poet born and raised in DC. A 2026 Fine Arts Center fellow. His work has been featured in Georgia Review, Poetry.Onl, Lamplack, and Poetry London among others. He holds fellowships from the Watering Hole, Breadloaf, Obsidian, and Cave Canem Starshine and Clay. You can find his work at KennyCarrolliii.com