The poet laureate of Los Angeles is ROBIN COSTE LEWIS, who won the National Book Prize for Voyage of the Sable Venus. She is a Cave Canem member and a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, as well as a writer-in-residence at the University of Southern California. She holds a BA in English from Hampshire College, an MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in poetry and visual studies from the University of Southern California. Lewis was born in Compton, California, to a New Orleans family.