Born and raised in Pittsburgh, performance poet Joel Dias-Porter served in the US Air Force following high school, and then worked for several years as a professional disc jockey in the Washington, DC area under the name DJ Renegade.  A Cave Canem Fellow and member of Washington, DC’s WriterCorps, Porter has taught at Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts. He lives in the DC area. Dias-Porter’s poetry engages the act of improvisation through explorations of intimacy, jazz music, and family heritage.