Background
Burke was born orn September 19, 1972, in Staten Island, New York and raised in New Jersey.
Burke was born orn September 19, 1972, in Staten Island, New York and raised in New Jersey.
New York University; The New School.
She later moved to New York City, where she was a graduate of both New York University and The New School. During her lifetime, Burke was known for spoken word poetry performances at venues such as the Nuyorican Poets Café, Bowery Poetry Club, the National Arts Club, P.S. 122, and the Saint Mark"s Poetry Project. Her work appeared in periodicals such as Ping Pong, BUST, Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) Bar Literature, GO and Velvet Park, and in anthologies such as Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007), Reactions 5 (Pen & Incorporated, 2005), The Milk of Almonds: Italian-American Women Writers on Food & Culture (Feminist Press, 2002), The World in Us (Street Martins Press, 2000), Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache (Alyson Books, 2004) and His Hands, His Tools, His Sex, His Dress (Haworth Press, 2001).
She was diagnosed with Hodgkin"s lymphoma in 2010.
She maintained a blog, WTF Cancer Diaries, to document her experiences with cancer treatment, but died on June 18, 2011 due to complications from her treatment.