Maria Hamilton Abegunde is a faculty member in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.

She is a memory keeper, poet, doula, ancestral priest, and Reiki master. She uses the arts, contemplative practices, and ritual to explore ways to heal trauma through community, collaborative, and co-creative practices.

Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and essays have been published in the journals COG, FIRE!!!, the Kenyon Review, Massachusetts Review, nocturnes, North Meridian Review, Obsidian, and Tupelo Quarterly; in the books ASHÉ: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expressivity, Black Joy Unbound, Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue, The Eternal Year of African People, and SO WE CAN KNOW: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth.

She is the commissioned poet for the exhibitions Be/Coming, Keeper of My Mothers’ Dreams, and Sister Song: The Requiem. Dr. Abegunde is a Cave Canem, Sacatar, Black Earth Institute, and NEH Summer Institute fellow.