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LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs

She // Her // Hers

Interdisciplinary Poet and Relative

New York, New York

A black-and-white profile image of a woman in three-quarter profile from the chest up. She is wearing a headdress made of patterned fabric, a black linen blouse, mother of pearl earrings, and a wampum shell pendant around her neck. She is looking directly into the camera and is not smiling.

Photo by Dirk Skiba.

LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs was born and raised in Harlem. Diggs is an interdisciplinary poet, sound artist, and author of In Search of Sugarcane (2025), TwERK (2013), and Village (2023), among other titles. Her work is truly hybrid: languages and modes are grafted together and furl out insistently from each bound splice. Diggs has received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship (2015), a Whiting Award (2016), and a C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts (2020), as well as grants and fellowships from Cave Canem, Creative Capital, Howard Foundation, and the Japan–United States Friendship Commission. She has performed at an array of venues from CalArts, Valencia, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to poetry festivals in Denmark and Romania. As an independent curator, artistic director, and producer, she has presented events for BAMCafé, Brooklyn; Lincoln Center Out of Doors, New York; and El Museo del Barrio, New York. Diggs teaches at Brooklyn College and lives in El Barrio.

Donor -This award was generously supported by Barbara and Amos Hostetter.

This artist page was last updated on: 01.14.2026

Writing
Image of two square panels spelling the word "OM". Each letter is sewn in a circular pattern. The panels are constructed with glass seed beads of various colors and are sewn to pieces of muslin cloth with cotton thread.

a question of ancestry by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. Beads, thread, muslin.

Still from AndNow 2019 Keynote Performance by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs.

AndNow 2019 Keynote Performance by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs.

natasha is going to kill boris (excerpt)

caterpillars & grief :: the screech of some forty girls masking the seer’s
anguish. :: future masquerades toward the La Marqueta on Park
on thin webs, the larva break, free fall :: minor safety inside a training
bra or sweat-weathered mushrooms to accidently pupate
welp :: the squeals of puberty lend to their massacre :: splat
aquamarine protein erupts out red fuzz :: ectoplasm
:: a boy’s savagery plays out on the bottom of his k-swiss :: hulk smash
they transfer the spoils
onto the streets of Harlem :: split
—crack skull :: rip :: puny gods
these rites make right boys to men to some safer passage :: suffer
the black common law :: widows :: journey to the bottom
of Bear Mountain Park’s pool :: between wormholes
a girl is dancing w/ her eyes closed beneath mechanical surf
which way is up :: distancing downward :: is there any ooze
to ignite another freeze?
cybernetic tidal waves are criminal
:: the arms untrained
paddle in wrong directions
a hand reaches out :: fumbles to grab
pulls her up :: & out
“sun’s getting real low, sun’s going down.”
never again :: the bastard hatchling’s sargassum :: if ever a man did

Poem by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs.