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Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events.^[1]

In entertainment, spoken word performances generally consist of storytelling or poetry, exemplified by people like Hedwig Gorski and Gil Scott Heron, the lengthy monologues by Spalding Gray, and improvising ranters/commentators like Henry Rollins.

History[link]

Spoken word poetry originated from the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance^[2] and blues music.^[3]

Modern day spoken word poetry became popular in the underground African-American community in the 1960s with the Last Poets. The Last Poets was a poetry and political music group that was birthed from the African-American Civil Rights movement.^[4]

Spoken word poetry came more towards the mainstream in popularity a short time later when Gil Scott Heron released his spoken word poem The Revolution Will Not Be Televised on the album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox in 1970.^[5]

In the late 1970s Los Angeles poet Wanda Coleman brought modern spoken word poetry into written form with the release of her poetry collection, Mad Dog, Black Lady in 1979 on Black Sparrow Press.^[6]

Spoken Word was adopted by college circles in the early 1980s to describe a new wave of performing arts that was birthed during Postmodern Art Movement.^[7]

Many artists and poets have not published any of their works in book forms. Some use video and audio recording, the means used exclusively by Hedwig Gorski, who rejected what she called the "dull-drums" of book publishing in the 1980s.^[8] Spalding Gray's film Swimming to Cambodia is a well-known example of spoken word, with Gray siting at a desk, talking about his experiences during the filming of The Killing Fields. Nevertheless, spoken word today is part of the oral culture movement spreading literary expression that includes all minorities and women, unlike the domination by the white male community as was case with the Beats in the 1960s.^[9]

The Nuyorican Poets Café on New York’s Lower Eastside was founded in 1973 and is one of the oldest American venues for presenting spoken word poetry. The Nuyorican Poets Café in 1989 held the first documented poetry slam. ^[10]

On the West Coast Da Poetry Lounge and The World Stage are two of the oldest venues for spoken word poetry. The World Stage presenting the more literary side of the spoken word tradition and Da Poetry Lounge embracing the more performance side of spoken word tradition.^[11]

The Nuyorican Poets Café and Da Poetry Lounge have a close association with the poetry slam movement which was popularized by Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Lounge with both main hosts Bob Holman^[12] and Shihan^[13] apprearing several times on the show.

Motivation[link]

Since its inception, the spoken word has been an outlet for people to release their views outside the academic and institutional domains of the university and academic or small press. The spoken word and its most popular offshoot, slam poetry, evolved into the present day soap-box for people, especially younger ones, to express their views, emotions, life experiences or information to audiences. The views of spoken word artists encompass frank commentary on religion, politics, sex and gender, often taboo subjects in the world of contemporary academic poetry. When talking about emotion, it depends. A spoken word piece can be powerful with the right emotion behind it but, at the same time, a lack of emotion can set a poem apart. It all depends on the topic. Life experiences are best, especially when the person has actually lived through the experience. Lastly, spoken word is used to inform or make an audience conscious of some human aspect pertaining to life.^[14]

See also[link]

• Spoken word soul
• List of performance poets

References[link]

Sarah Kay is a professor of French at New York University.

Kay was a student in the UK at the University of Oxford. She started her teaching career at the University of Liverpool then moved to the University of Cambridge. She was head of department at Cambridge from 1996 until 2001 and Director of Studies at Girton College, Cambridge from 2003 to 2005. Kay has been a fellow of the British Academy since 2004 and was awarded a D.Litt (Cambridge) in 2005.^[1]

Publications[link]

• Žižek: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 2003)
• (with Malcolm Bowie and Terence Cave) A Short History of French Literature (Oxford University Press, 2003)
• Courtly Contradictions (Stanford University Press, 2001)
• (with Simon Gaunt) The Troubadours. An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
• The Chansons de geste in the Age of Romance (Oxford University Press, 1995)
• (as co-editor with Miri Rubin) Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester University Press, 1994)
• (as editor) Raoul de Cambrai (Oxford University Press, 1992)
• Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 1990)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kay's profile at Princeton University
• Review of Kay's Courtly Contradictions published in The Medieval Review, 2004.

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Staceyann Chin

Staceyann Chin (born December 25, 1972) is a spoken word poet, performing artist and LGBT rights political activist. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Pittsburgh Daily, and has been featured on 60 Minutes. She was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she shared her struggles growing up homosexual in Jamaica.

Personal life[link]

Chin was born in Jamaica but now lives in New York City, in Brooklyn. She is of Chinese-Jamaican and Afro-Jamaican decent. She announced in 2011 that she was pregnant with her first child, giving birth to a daughter in January 2012. She has been candid about her pregnancy by means of in-vitro fertilization, and wrote about her experiences as a pregnant, single lesbian in a guest blog for the Huffington Post.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/staceyann-chin/lgbt-pregnancy_b_1104635.html^[1]

Career[link]

Openly lesbian,^[1] she has been an "out poet and political activist" since 1998. In addition to performing in and co-writing the Tony-nominated Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Chin has appeared in Off-Broadway one-woman shows and at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She has also held poetry workshops worldwide. Chin credits her accomplishments to her hard-working grandmother and the pain of her mother's absence.

Chin's poetry can be found in her first chapbook, Wildcat Woman, the one she now carries on her back, Stories Surrounding My Coming, and numerous anthologies, including Skyscrapers, Taxis and Tampons, Poetry Slam, Role Call, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies. Chin's voice can be heard on CD compilations out of Bar 13- Union Square and Pow Wow productions. In 2009, Chin published her autobiographical novel, The Other Side of Paradise - A Memoir. (New York: Scriber. ISBN 0-7432-9290-1).

She is a host on Logo's After Ellen Internet show, "She Said What?" and a co-host of Centric's My Two Cents.

In 2009, Chin performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States”.^[2]

Critical analysis[link]

Chin's "activist driven"^[3] work has garnered praise in various publications. Of her one-woman show Border/Clash, The New York Times wrote that Chin "is sassy, rageful and sometimes softly self-mocking."^[4] The Advocate wrote, "With poems that combine hilarious one-liners ("I told her I liked the way she made that pink push-up bra look intellectual") with a refusal to conform ("I want to be the dyke who likes to fuck men"), Chin is out to confront more than just the straight world."^[5] And in the book, Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz referred to Chin as "definitely the prize to win" among the three New York City Poetry Slam venues during the years she competed, adding:

Awards[link]

Chin was the winner of the 1999 Chicago People of Color Slam; first runner- up in the 1999 Outright Poetry Slam; winner of the 1998 Lambda Poetry Slam; a finalist in the 1999 Nuyorican Grand Slam; winner of the 1998 and 2000 Slam This!; and winner of WORD: The First Slam for Television. She has also been featured by Public-access television cable TV programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as many local radio stations including, WHCR and WBAI. The Joseph Pap Public Theatre has featured her on more than one occasion, and Staceyann has toured internationally, with performances in London, Denmark, Germany, South Africa and New York's own Central Park Summer Stage.

Works[link]

Books[link]

• Chin, Staceyann (April 2009). The Other Side of Paradise - A Memoir. New York: Scriber. ISBN 0-7432-9290-1. 

Anthologies[link]

• "Authenticity", in Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness. Edited by Rebecca Walker (Soft Skull Press, February 1, 2012)^[7]

Performances[link]

• Staceyann Chin: Performed Poems in Trikster - Nordic Queer Journal #3, 2009.

Interviews[link]

• Staceyann Chin & Ulrika Dahl: Articulating Honesty: A Conversation on Literature and Activism in Trikster - Nordic Queer Journal #3, 2009

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Boykin, Keith (October 3, 2006). "Staceyann Chin's Redemption Song". KeithBoykin.com. http://www.keithboykin.com/arch/2006/10/03/staceyann_chin_redem. Retrieved 2007-10-29 
2. ^ http://www.thepeoplespeak.com/pages/credits/
3. ^ Windy City Times "Multifaceted: Staceyann Chin Talks" by MARK CORECE. March 19, 2008
4. ^ LEE, FELICIA R. (July 17, 2005). "A Def Poetry Jam of Her Very Own". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/theater/newsandfeatures/17lee.html. 
5. ^ The Advocate "Getting raves for her rants" by MICHAEL GILTZBY. April 29, 2003
6. ^ Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. (2008). Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. Soft Skull Press. Page 181. ISBN 1-933368-82-9.
7. ^ Staff (December 12, 2011). "Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness. Edited by Rebecca Walker.", Publishers Weekly.

External links[link]

• Official Staceyann Chin website
• Staceyann Chin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Brantley, Ben (November 15, 2002). "Untamed Poetry, Loose on Broadway". The New York Times. http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9405E5DE1730F936A25752C1A9649C8B63. Retrieved 2010-02-07. 
• Voo, Jocelyn (September 2008). "Staceyann Chin: More Than a Mouthful". Curve Magazine. http://www.curvemag.com/Curve-Magazine/September-2008/Stacyann-Chin-More-than-a-Mouthful/. Retrieved 2010-02-07. 

Andrea Gibson (born August 1975) is an award-winning poet and activist. She lives in Colorado. Her poetry focuses on gender norms, politics, and the struggles queer people face in today's society. Gibson disclosed that she chose to write what was in her bones and thus these subject matters are what came out. On top of using poetry to express what she feels and tackle real issues, she is involved with many group activists. She often performs at Take Back the Night Events, LGBT events, Pride events, Trans* events, Anti-war rallies, Peace rallies, organizations against the occupation of Palestine, groups focused on examining the wrongs of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy. She also works with a group called Vox Feminista whose model is to "comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" on all these issues.

Gibson grew up in Calais, Maine. She is the daughter of Mark and Shirley Gibson, and has one sister, Laura, whom she mentions in her poem 'Titanic'. She attended Saint Joseph's College of Maine. Later, she moved to New Orleans with her girlfriend. In 1999, the two moved to Boulder, Colorado. She went to her first open-mic in Denver.^[1] A four-time Denver Grand Slam Champion, Gibson finished fourth at the 2004 National Poetry Slam, and she finished third at both the 2006 and 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam.^[2][3] In 2008, Gibson became the first poet ever to win the Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWps) in Detroit.^[4]

In 2011, Write Bloody Publishing published Andrea Gibson's 6th book, "The Madness Vase". In 2009, they published her first syndicated work, Pole Dancing To Gospel Hymns, She also has self-published four books: Trees that Grow in Cemeteries, Yellow Bird, What the Yarn Knows of Sweaters, and Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns.

Discography[link]

• Bullets and Windchimes (2003)
• Swarm (2004)
• When the bough breaks (2006)
• Yellowbird (2009)
• Flower Boy (2011)

Yellowbird is her second most recent album incorporates music and song throughout the album. Andrea professes that she always writes to music and so it was natural to put music together for the album. This album was also her effort to write about what she was afraid to write about. This theme is continued through many of the poems in her most recent album, Flower Boy.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Audio of "Andrew," "For Eli," "See-Through," "Walmart," "Swingset," and "Blue Blanket" (among others) on Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel
• Video of Andrea Gibson from June 2009 at Da Poetry Lounge in West Hollywood, CA – on Poetry.LA

Shane L. Koyczan (born 22 May 1976) is a Canadian poet and writer. Born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Koyczan grew up in Penticton, British Columbia. In 2000, he became the first Canadian to win the Individual Championship title at the US National Poetry Slam.^[1] Together with Mighty Mike McGee and C. R. Avery, he is the co-founder of spoken word, "talk rock" trio, Tons of Fun University (T.O.F.U.). In August 2007 Shane Koyczan and his work were the subject of an episode of the television documentary series Heart of a Poet, produced by Canadian filmmaker Maureen Judge for broadcaster Bravo!.^[2]

Koyczan has published two books, poetry collection Visiting Hours, and Stickboy, a novel in verse. Visiting Hours was selected by both the Guardian and Globe and Mail for their 2005 Best Books of the Year lists.

Koyczan’s "We Are More" and Ivan Bielinski’s "La première fois", commissioned by the Canadian Tourism Commission, were unveiled at Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on 1 July 2007.^[3] Koyczan performed a variation on his piece at the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.^[4]

Koyczan also collaborated on Vancouver-based musician Dan Mangan's Roboteering EP on the track Tragic Turn of Events - Move Pen Move.

Bibliography[link]

• I'm Calling you friend
• Help Wanted
• I Drew That For You
• Visiting Hours (2005, House of Parlance Media; ISBN 978-0-9738131-0-4)
• Stickboy ( 2008, House of Parlance Media ISBN 978-0-9738131-6-6)^[5]

Discography[link]

• Perfect
• 2nd Time Around
• Visiting Hours
• American Pie Chart
• Shut Up And Say Something

With Tons of Fun University (ToFU):

• The Them They're Talking About (2005)
• Hard to Tell (2009)

As Shane Koyczan and The Short Story Long:

• A Pretty Decent Cape in My Closet (2007)
  • includes "The Crickets Have Arthritis"

As Shane Koyczan and The Short Story Long:

• "Remembrance Year" (2012)

Filmography[link]

• The 2000 National Poetry Slam Finals (2000, The Wordsmith Press)

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long at MySpace
• Text of "We Are More", as recited at the 2010 Olympics opening