She is the author of Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry, as well as four collections of poetry, including a half-red sea (2006) and, most recently, the new black (2011), winner of the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry. Her essays and poems appear widely in journals and anthologies, including Boston Review, Contemporary Literature, Feminist Formations, FENCE, Jacket2, The Black Scholar, Waxwing, Dave the Potter, and The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Poetry. Her work has been honored and supported with the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize, fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and residencies at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She currently serves as creative editor of Feminist Studies.