Bobby LeFebre | |
|---|---|
 Slam Nuba team | |
| Born | 1982 Denver, Colorado |
| Occupation | Poet |
Bobby LeFebre (born 1982) is an American poet, performer, and cultural worker. He is the current poet laureate for the state of Colorado. He is the state's youngest and first poet laureate of color. [1]
LeFebre is a native of Denver and attended North High School. He received his B.S. in psychology from Metropolitan State University in 2004 and M.A. in arts and culture from the University of Denver. [2]
Bobby LeFebre is an Emmy-nominated, SAG-Eligible writer, performer, and cultural and social worker fusing a non-traditional multi-hyphenated professional identity to imagine new realities, empower communities, advance arts and culture, and serve as an agent of provocation, transformation, equity and social change. LeFebre is the co-founder of Sacred Voices, previously known as Cafe Cultura, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting youth literacy through poetry. [3]
He was a founding team member of Slam Nuba. [4] As an actor, LeFebre is represented by Radical Artists Agency, who manage Colorado's top talent for film, commercial, voice-over, industrials, and commercial print. [5]
LeFebre wrote the play Northside, which addresses the gentrification of Denver. The play premiered at Su Teatro Cultural & Performing Arts Center in June 2019 and sold out 30 shows, with over ten-thousand people attending. LeFebre stated "Northside" served as "an unapologetic celebration of cultural preservation and permanence and a eulogy to things lost." He called it "an urban-colloquial story of power and privilege, unflinching love, and the innate human need to belong somewhere." [6]
He is a board member of the Clyfford Still Museum and a member of the Latino Cultural Arts Center's advisory council. [2] He sits on the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs and is a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures fellow, and an Intercultural Leadership Institute fellow. [1]
He is a two-time Grand Slam Champion, a National Poetry Slam Finalist, an Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, and a two-time TEDx speaker. [7]
In 2015, he was named one of Colorado's Top 100 Creatives by Westword magazine. [8]
On July 23, 2019, he was named Colorado's eighth poet laureate by Governor Jared Polis. [9]
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) of Arezzo were the first to be crowned poets laureate after the classical age, respectively in 1315 and 1342. In Britain, the term dates from the appointment of Bernard André by Henry VII of England. The royal office of Poet Laureate in England dates from the appointment of John Dryden in 1668.
Westword is a free digital and print media publication based in Denver, Colorado. Westword publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music and arts, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circulates every Thursday. Westword has been owned by Voice Media Group since January 2013, when a group of senior executives bought out the previous owners.
Emanuel Xavier, is an American poet, spoken word artist, author, editor, and LGBTQ activist born and raised in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Associated with the East Village, Manhattan arts scene in New York City, he emerged from the ball culture scene and the Nuyorican movement to become a successful poet, writer and advocate for gay youth programs and Latino gay literature.
Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
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.
North High School is a historic public high school located in the Northside of Denver, Colorado, United States. The school is part of the Denver Public Schools system and has been in continuous operation since 1883. It is one of four original high schools in Denver; the other three are East, West, and South.
Slam Nuba is a performance poetry event based in Denver, Colorado, USA. It originated in 2006 as a program of the Pan African Arts Society and certified by Poetry Slam, Inc. Slam Nuba holds its poetry events at Cafe Nuba, and the major slam at The Crossroads Theater, both located in the Five Points neighborhood in Denver.
Suzi Q. Smith is an American an award-winning artist, activist, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado.
Trinidad Sanchez Jr. was a poet and activist who wrote about culture and social issues. He received several awards during his lifetime and was given the President's Peace Commission Art of Peace award posthumously in 2007.
Valerie Martínez is an American poet, writer, educator, arts administrator, consultant, and collaborative artist. She served as the poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico from 2008 to 2010.
Chris Ransick was a writer of literary fiction and poetry from Colorado. Ransick was appointed by Mayor John Hickenlooper as the poet laureate for the City of Denver, a post Ransick held from 2006 to 2010. He died of pancreatic cancer on November 4, 2019.
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Alicia Cardenas was an Indigenous Mexican American painter, muralist, educator, activist and community organizer. She became a tattoo artist with her own business at a young age and was noted for being a Chicana feminist artist in Denver's male-dominated tattoo scene. She owned the Sol Tribe tattoo shop, which had been a longstanding feature of Denver. She was featured in a documentary on Chicano muralism by the Chicano Murals of Colorado Project, referred to as These Storied Walls. In her community, she was known as "Mama Matriarch." At the age of 44, she was murdered in a mass shooting, along with four other people.
Bianca Mikahn is an American poet, spoken word artist, hip hop musician, and activist based in Denver, Colorado. Mikahn was born and raised in Westminster, and began writing poetry at a young age. She began performing slam poetry in 2006, and has coached the Slam Nuba slam poetry team. In 2016, Mikahn was named one of Westword's 100 Colorado Creatives, and one of Denver's eleven best alternative hip hop music acts. In 2019, 303 Magazine named Mikahn one of "Six Black Musicians Pushing Denver Forward."
Brenton Weyi is an American essayist, thinker, playwright, poet, and humanist. He is an inaugural Playwright Fellow at Denver Center for the Performing Arts as well as a lead organizer for TEDxBoulder—one of the largest global TEDx events. He is known for cross-disciplinary creativity as well as for his upcoming musical, My Country, My Country
Sabrina & Corina: Stories. penguin random house. 2019.
Porsha Olayiwola is a Black American poet based in Boston, Massachusetts.
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.
The Poet Laureate of Colorado is the poet laureate for the U.S. state of Colorado. Colorado Poets Laureate are appointed to four-year terms. They are nominated by Colorado Creative Industries and Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book, and chosen by the Governor. The State of Colorado also appointed singer/songwriter John Denver in 1974.