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.
Michael Matthew McGee, more commonly known as Mighty Mike McGee, is an American slam poet.
Gary Mex Glazner, is a poet and author. He was the Managing Director of the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, 2007 to 2010.
Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution, mostly open to improvisation. From that time performance poetry in Australia has found new venues, audiences and expressions.
The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word is an annual festival produced by Spoken Word Canada and planned by a local Festival Organizing Committee in each host city.
Suzi Q. Smith is an American an award-winning artist, activist, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado.
Taalam Acey is an American spoken-word artist. He began pursuing the art in 1997 after visiting a poetry reading upon the invitation of a friend. At that point in his life, Acey was a full-time lecturer in senior level accounting at Rutgers University and a principal partner in a small business consulting firm. In 1999, Acey left Rutgers University to become a full-time performance poet. Each year, he travels to more than 50 cities in the United States and abroad to share his art and perspectives with enthralled audiences. Much of Acey's poetry addresses social and political issues from an afro-centric perspective while he maintains a fan base of a wide range of ethnicities. His work also provides a poetic perspective of relationships, whether man to woman, mother to son, or man to man. He champions the struggles of single parenthood and fatherly responsibility.
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.
Ian Keteku is a poet, musician and freelance journalist. Born as Ian Nana Yaw Adu Budu Keteku, his birth name mimics his diverse talents and interests. Raised in Canada and of Ghanaian heritage, Keteku earned the title of World Slam Poetry champion in France in the summer of 2010.
Queensland Poetry Festival is the flagship program of Queensland Poetry one of Australia's premier organisations for all things poetry. It exists to support and promote a poetry culture in Queensland and Australia, embracing the wide possibility of poetic expression in all of its forms. As well as hosting an annual festival, Queensland Poetry also produces a number of signature projects and programs throughout the year.
Mark Tredinnick is an Australian poet, essayist and teacher. Winner of the Montreal International Poetry Prize in 2011 and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 2012. He is the author of thirteen books, including four volumes of poetry ; The Blue Plateau;The Little Red Writing Book and Writing Well: the Essential Guide.
Harry Baker is a British spoken word artist, author and poet.
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."
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a British spoken word poet, writer and speaker, known for her poem "This Is Not a Humanising Poem" and writing about life as a Muslim woman in England on her site, The Brown Hijabi.
Afra Atiq is an Emirati spoken word poet who was born in the United Arab Emirates to an Emirati father and a Japanese-American mother. Atiq holds a PhD in Media and Creative Industries from the United Arab Emirates University and is the co-founder of the Untitled Chapters, a collective of female Emirati writers. Now, she works as a full-time poet. In 2015, She was named the "Best Performer" by Rooftop Rhythms and won the Abu Dhabi Music and Art Foundation Creativity award for her poem "An Open Letter to Cancer" in 2017.
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.
Deborah Emmanuel, known by her performance name ArunDitha, is a slam poet and multi-disciplinary artist from Singapore.
Diane Luby Lane is an American writer and nonprofit executive, best known as the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Get Lit. Luby Lane's organization was a 2020 Library of Congress best practice nominee for “doing exemplary, innovative and replicable work that promotes literacy and responds to the needs of our time.” She is also the creator of the Get Lit in-school curriculum.
The Bankstown Poetry Slam is the largest regular poetry slam in Australia that has been drawing increasingly diverse audiences from around Sydney since it started in Bankstown in 2013. BPS has become a literary institution in western Sydney with 200-300 people regularly attending their volunteer-run monthly slams at the Bankstown Arts Centre.
Blythe Baird, is an American poet, author, and actress from Chicago, Illinois. Her writing covers themes such as mental illness, eating disorders, sexuality, feminism, and trauma.
