Aaron Coleman arrived in St. Louis for the MFA writer’s program at Washington University in 2013. Coleman connected with a community of multidisciplinary artists, activists, and scholars across the St. Louis region, which was in the beginning of what would be known as the St. Louis Renaissance, or the Black Arts Renaissance. Interested in the poetics of Blackness, in national, transnational, and translational contexts, contemporary poetic explorations of sexuality and masculinity, and experimental or genre-bending poetic forms, Coleman worked extensively with Professor Mary Jo Bang, and Professor Carl Phillips, receiving his MFA in 2015. He was selected by Bang and Phillips for a third-year fellowship for the 2015-16 academic year.