Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon is the author of Open Interval and Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, as well as Poems in Conversation and a Conversation, a chapbook in collaboration with Elizabeth Alexander. Her work has appeared in such journals as African American Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, and Shenandoah. She is currently at work on a third collection, The Coal Tar Colors.  Van Clief-Stefanon earned her MFA  at Penn State and is currently associate professor of English at Cornell University.