A poetry slam is a competitive art event in which poets perform spoken word poetry before a live audience and a panel of judges. While formats can vary, slams are often loud and lively, with audience participation, cheering and dramatic delivery. Hip-hop music and urban culture are strong influences, and backgrounds of participants tend to be diverse.
Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of recitation and word play, such as the performer's live intonation and voice inflection. Spoken word is a "catchall" term that includes any kind of poetry recited aloud, including poetry readings, poetry slams, jazz poetry, and hip hop music, and can include comedy routines and prose monologues. Unlike written poetry, the poetic text takes its quality less from the visual aesthetics on a page, but depends more on phonaesthetics, or the aesthetics of sound.
Patricia Smith is an American poet, spoken-word performer, playwright, author, writing teacher, and former journalist. She has published poems in literary magazines and journals including TriQuarterly, Poetry, The Paris Review, Tin House, and in anthologies including American Voices and The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry. She is on the faculties of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and the Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Sierra Nevada University.
Sonia Sanchez is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has written over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays, plays, and children's books. In the 1960s, Sanchez released poems in periodicals targeted towards African-American audiences, and published her debut collection, Homecoming, in 1969. In 1993, she received Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and in 2001 was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for her contributions to the canon of American poetry. She has been influential to other African-American poets, including Krista Franklin.
Sheri-D Wilson, CM D. Litt, is a Canadian poet, spoken word artist, educator, speaker, producer and activist.
Andrea Gibson is an American poet and activist from Calais, Maine, who has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1999. Gibson's poetry focuses on gender norms, politics, social reform, and LGBTQ topics.
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is an American nonfiction writer and poet.
Aja Monet Bacquie is an American contemporary poet, writer, lyricist and activist.
Denice Frohman is a poet, writer, performer and educator, whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Frohman uses her experience as a queer woman from a multi-cultural background in her writing. By addressing identity, her work encourages communities to challenge the dominant social constructs and oppressive narratives in place that are currently working against concepts of unity and equity. Her message is about claiming the power to be who you are. She was born and raised in New York City, and earned her master's degree in education from Drexel University.
Emtithal "Emi" Mahmoud is a Sudanese-American poet and activist, who won the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam championship. In 2018, she became UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, and in this capacity, has traveled to refugee camps in Kenya, Greece and Jordan, drawing wider attention to the situation of refugees.
Button Poetry is a Minneapolis-based poetry company and independent publisher of performance poetry. They are known for their viral videos of slam poetry performances, including a performance of "OCD" by Neil Hilborn that the Knight Foundation called "the most-viewed slam performance in history."
Yesika Salgado is an American poet. She is the author of three poetry books: Corazón, Tesoro, and Hermosa. She is also a co-founder of the poetry collective Chingona Fire.
Desireé Dallagiacomo is an American spoken word poet. Her poems, "Thighs Say" “Real Sex Tips.” and “Shave Me” were published by Button Poetry. She is a Pushcart Prize Nominee.
Imani Cezanne is an American activist and spoken word poet. She is the founding president of President of S.P.E.A.K..
Javon Johnson is an American spoken word poet, writer, and professor. He is the director of African American and African Diaspora Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the author of Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities.
Olivia Gatwood is a poet, writer, and educator on topics that include coming of age, feminism, gendered violence, & true crime.
Franny Choi is an American writer, poet and playwright.
"Shrinking Women" is a poem by Lily Myers. Myers recited it at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational; the video was subsequently reposted by Button Poetry and HuffPost, where it went viral. The video of this performance had been viewed more than five million times by 2016. The poem explores how Myers's mother, and as she realizes, herself, have been taught to take up less space, particularly to "make room" for men, such as Myers's brother and father. For her mother, this manifests as consuming fewer calories, and Myers additionally links this to her own use of apologies when asking questions in class. When spoken, the poem is about three and a half minutes long.
Porsha Olayiwola is an African-American poet. In 2019 she was appointed the Poet laureate of Boston. Her first poetry collection, i shimmer sometimes, too was released in 2019 by Button Poetry. In 2020 her work was included in the exhibition Women Take the Floor at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Dominique Christina is a writer, performer and social activist. She is a champion at the National Poetry Series and Women of the World Poetry Slam.
