Ciona Rouse is a poet and teaching artist. The author of Vantablack, the first chapbook of Third Man Books (2017), her poetry has also appeared in Oxford American, wildness, Booth, The Account, and other publicationsa. She’s featured on NPR’s Turning the Tables in a collaborative project with poets Adia Victoria and Caroline Randall Williams. Rouse has been a visiting writing instructor at The University of the South Sewanee, Vanderbilt University, The Porch Writers’ Collective, Tennessee Young Writers’ Workshop, Hindman Settlement School, Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center and others. A frequent collaborator with various artists, she served as a resident poet for the “Nick Cave: FEAT” art exhibition at Frist Art Museum in 2017-2018, culminating in a poem called “We,” which was named 2018’s “Best Poetry Performance” by Nashville Scene. Rouse is co-curator of the Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick exhibition at Frist Art Museum (2020) and forthcoming at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. A graduate of Columbia College of South Carolina, Rouse currently lives in Nashville, Tenn., where she’s helped bring the Nashville poetry community together by curating a number of poetry events.