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.
Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 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, pianologues, musical readings, 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.
Buddy Wakefield is an American poet, three-time world champion spoken word artist, and the most toured performance poet in history. His latest works have been released by Righteous Babe Records (album) and Write Bloody Publishing (books). He has lived in Sanborn, New York, Baytown, Texas, Seattle, Washington, Los Angeles, California, and currently lives in Porto, Portugal.
The National Poetry Slam (NPS) was a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and, occasionally, Europe and Australia, participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurred in early August every year and in different U.S. cities. The last National Poetry Slam took place in 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.
Sarah Kay is an American poet. Known for her spoken word poetry, Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E., a group dedicated to using spoken word as an educational and inspirational tool.
Chris Tse is a Canadian spoken-word poet, educator, and author of Chinese descent. As a spoken word poet, he placed second at the 2011 Poetry Slam World Cup and 2016 Rio International Poetry Slam, and has shared the stage with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Shane Koyczan, and Mustafa the Poet. Tse's book A Song for the Paper Children, published in 2024, was written to commemorate the centenary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and was performed in the Senate of Canada on June 23, 2023. The book was listed in The Canadian Chilstem's Book Centre list of best books for Kids & Teens in 2024. He is a sessional lecturer at the University of Victoria and Simmons University.
The Women of the World Poetry Slam (WoWPS) is an annual international poetry competition and festival. The poetry slam is open to "people 18 years and older who navigate the world as and/or identify as womxn".
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.
Joelle Taylor RSL is a poet, playwright and author. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.
Kevin Coval is an American poet. Coval is a Chicago-based writer who is known for exploring topics such as race, hip-hop culture, Chicago history, and Jewish-American identity in his work. He is also known for his appearances in four seasons of the Peabody Award-winning television series Def Poetry Jam on HBO.
Rudy K. Francisco is an American spoken word poet and writer. He has won several poetry slams and written six books of poetry: Getting Stitches, Scratch, No Gravity, No Gravity Part II, Helium, and I'll Fly Away. He made an appearance on TV One's Verses and Flow and performed his spoken word poems "Complainers" and "Rifle" on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
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."
Da Poetry Lounge is the largest weekly open mic performance space for poetry in the US. It is located in Los Angeles at the Greenway Court Theatre.
Alyesha Wise, aka "Ms. Wise" is a poet, teaching artist and co-founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement (S.L.A.M). From Camden, N.J., Alyesha currently resides in Los Angeles where she also serves as a teaching artist for Street Poets, Inc. She previously served as the head coach of Da Poetry Lounge's slam team and a co-coach for the Get Lit Youth slam team. Wise co-founded and was a co-host of The Pigeon Presents: The Philadelphia Poetry Slam. She has been featured in a speaking engagement on the TEDx Talk series in which she dedicated the talk to her younger sister and Camden. While in Philadelphia, Wise was a co-host of Jus Words, the longest running weekly open mic in the city at the time. She also founded the organization Love, Us, a Philadelphia-based organization and annual production which worked to spread unity and self-love through the arts. The production was a large attraction in the Philadelphia poetry scene and a Twitter trending topic in 2010. She is currently the founder and organizer of Black Women Necessary, a safe space for black women. Wise also served as a former teaching artist and volunteer coordinator at New Earth, and continues to teach and mentor in Los Angeles youth detention centers. In 2017, she authored the book, Carnival. Ron Howard once said about Alyesha's performance style, "Very Powerful."
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.
Sabrina Benaim is a writer, performance artist, and slam poet. Benaim was a winner of the 2014 Toronto Poetry Slam. She is best known for her poem "Explaining My Depression To My Mother."
Porsha Olayiwola is a Black American poet based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Jasmine Gardosi is a British writer and activist whose work has covered mental health and LGBTQ+ issues.
