TAI AMRI SPANN-RYAN is an African American Universalist Quaker from Lenni-Lenape land in South Jersey, right outside of Philly. He is Lawrence, Kansas' 2016 Langston Hughes Poetry Award Recipient, and is a co-founder of the collaborative group B.L.A.C.K. (Black Literature and Arts Collective of Kansas) where he organizes events and readings. He was the chief editor of Tendrel: Naropa University’s Journal on Diversity, self-published the chapbook Ancient Writings of Dark Prophet: The Undisciplined Mystic, and has published work in Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices edited by Angelina Conti and Justice Calls: Sermons of Welcome and Affirmation edited by Phil Snyder. He gardens in Lawrence with his wife and two children, and teaches middle school English & Language Arts in Topeka, Kansas, and studied creative writing at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.