Chocolate Waters

During the "second wave of feminism," Chocolate Waters was one of the first openly lesbian poets to be published and her contribution has been documented in Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975 (U of Il. Press, Barbara Love, Ed.).

A pioneer in women's publishing and in the art of performance poetry, she has toured throughout the United States, but makes her home in Manhattan. Her first three collections: To the man reporter from the Denver Post, Take Me Like A Photograph and Charting New Waters were produced by Eggplant Press during 1975-80 and are considered classics of the early women’s movement.

Her CD, Chocolate Waters Uncensored, spans three decades of groundbreaking work, and was released by Eggplant Productions in 2001. The woman who wouldn’t shake hands was published by Poets Wear Prada in 2011 and Muddying the Holy Waters, a combination of poems, essays and photographs was published by Eggplant Press in Oct. 2021.

Waters is the recipient of a New York State Foundation for the Arts fellowship in Poetry and has also been awarded a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. In 1995 she was one of five featured artists in the "Artist As Citizen" exhibit, curated by Amy Ernst, at the American Council for the Arts in New York City.

Her work, which has been nominated for several Puschcart prizes, has appeared in hundreds of publications, both in hard copy and online. Most recently in Black Coffee Review, Shot Glass Journal, the Rye Whiskey Review and Big City Lit.

Hailed as the "Poet Laureate of Hell’s Kitchen," Waters teaches poetry workshops and tutors individual clients and is a frequent participant in the New York poetry circuit.

You can contact her on Facebook or at her website, www.chocolatewaters.com.