Sarah Kay | |
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 Kay at the 2018 Texas Book Festival | |
| Born | June 19, 1988 New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Education | Brown University (MA) |
| Website | |
| kaysarahsera | |
Sarah Kay (born June 19, 1988) is an American poet. Known for her spoken word poetry, Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E. (founded 2004), a group dedicated to using spoken word as an educational and inspirational tool. [1] [2] [3] [4]
And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
Kay was born in New York City, New York, to a Japanese American mother and a Jewish American father. Sarah Kay has one brother, Philip Kay, who is four years younger. Sarah's dad worked during the day, so her mom was the one at home that she had to talk to. [5] She has a Master of Arts in teaching from Brown University, and an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Grinnell College. She now currently writes, reads, and performs poetry for diverse audiences. She is also the co-director and founder of her current project, project VOICE. She began performing poetry at the Bowery Poetry Club in the East Village at the age of 14, joining their Slam Team in 2006. [6] That year, she was the youngest person competing in the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas. She has participated in many poetry slams. In 2007 Kay made her television debut, performing the poem "Hands" on HBO's Def Poetry Jam. [7] She has performed at events and venues like the Lincoln Center, the Tribeca Film Festival, and at the United Nations where she was a featured performer for the launch of the 2004 World Youth Report. [8] [9] In May 2010, she performed at *spark!, a benefit for the Acumen Fund in New York, New York. [10]
On March 3, 2011, she performed at the TED conference in Long Beach, California as part of a series entitled "Beauty, Imagination, Enchantment." Along with a talk about her upbringing, she performed the poems "B: If I should have a daughter..." and "Hiroshima". [11]
Kay performed at The Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas in Nantucket, Massachusetts. [12]
She is the 2017 Artist in Residence at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, California. [13]
In 2019 she announced via Twitter [14] that she would be hosting a podcast called Sincerely, X, which will be produced by TEDTalks and Audible.
Although Kay works primarily in spoken word poetry, she has published poems in magazines such as Foundling Review, DamselFly Press, and decomP literary magazine. [15] [16] [17]
In 2011, Kay published "B", a short hardcover book containing the titular poem, which was originally written in 2007. [18] The book features illustrations by Sophia Janowitz. In March 2014, No Matter the Wreckage, a collection of poetry from the first decade of her career, was published by Write Bloody Publishing, again featuring illustrations by Sophia Janowitz. [19] "The Type" was published in 2016 and is an illustrated version of her poem by the same name (with drawings by Sophia Janowitz as in her book "B") . [20] Kay is also a resident poet for TheParis Review where she contributes in a weekly poetry column titled “Poetry Rx.” [21] On March 13, 2018, All Our Wild Wonder, a vibrant tribute to extraordinary educators and celebrating learning, was released. The book features illustrations by Sophia Janowitz. [22] Her second poetry collection A Little Daylight Left will be published by Penguin Random House on April 1, 2025. It is, in Kay's words "[...] a collection of poems that chronicles the evolution of my reaching. [...] of a lifelong grappling with what poetry is for, what it can & cannot do, how it buoys & connects & changes & ushers me through the chapters of my time here, not only as a compass, it turns out, but as a companion, too. [...]" [23]
A slam poetry 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.
Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. It covers a variety of styles and genres.
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.
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.
Shane L. Koyczan, born 22 May 1976, is a Canadian spoken word poet, writer, and member of the group Tons of Fun University. He is known for writing about issues like bullying, cancer, death, and eating disorders. He is most famous for the anti-bullying poem “To This Day” which has over 25 million views on YouTube.
Grace Nichols FRSL is a Guyanese poet who moved to Britain in 1977, before which she worked as a teacher and journalist in Guyana. Her first collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. In December 2021, she was announced as winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Phil Kaye is a Japanese-American poet, writer and filmmaker. He is the co-director of Project VOICE, and writes and performs as a spoken word artist both in solo and group projects. Kaye is the author of two books, A Light Bulb Symphony (2011) and Date & Time (2018).
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.
Kay Ryan is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. From 2008 to 2010 she was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate. In 2011 she was named a MacArthur Fellow and she won the Pulitzer Prize.
Tracie Morris is an American poet. She is also a performance artist, vocalist, voice consultant, creative non-fiction writer, critic, scholar, bandleader, actor and non-profit consultant. Morris is from Brooklyn, New York. Morris's experimental sound poetry is progressive and improvisational. She is a tenured professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Staceyann Chin 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 as a gay person in Jamaica. Chin's first full-length poetry collection was published in 2019.
Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a spoken-word poet, dancer, playwright, and actor who frequently directs stand-alone hip-hop theater plays.
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.
Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
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."
Aranya Johar is an Indian poet. She uses social media to address issues like gender equality, mental health and body positivity. She uses slam poetry to confront beauty standards. Aranya's first released piece, “A Brown Girls’s Guide to Gender” became a viral sensation and hit 1 million views within two days of its upload. She integrated spoken word in Bollywood for the first time through her collaboration with Akshay Kumar for the movie ‘Padman’. Aranya was a speaker at TEDxICTMumbai in April 2017. She has been invited and praised by various poets and foundations.
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.
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.
Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a Kanaka Maoli poet, educator, and activist who lives and works in Hawai'i. She is known for her poetry and activism centered on Hawaiian culture and identity.
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