Terisa Siagatonu | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Poet  |
| Employer | |
| Awards |
|
| Website | https://www.terisasiagatonu.com/ |
Terisa Tinei Siagatonu is a Samoan spoken word poet, arts educator, and community organizer. [1] [2] [3] [4] In 2012, she was awarded a Champion of Change Award for her activism. [5]
Siagatonu was born in San Francisco, CA. [3] She was the first on her father's side to attend college. [6] Siagatonu graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2011 with a Bachelor's Degree in community studies and a minor in education. [6] [7] While there, she experienced spoken word for the first time and began writing. [8] During college she competed in poetry slams, taught spoken word poetry to students, and was a Youth Speaks mentor. [6] She earned a Master of Arts in Marriage/FamilyTherapy from the University of Southern California. [6] [9]
She served as Project Director for the Pacific Islander Education and Retention project (PIER) at University of California, Los Angeles. [4]
She is a slam poet and coach. [10] She works as an activist in LGBTQ rights, racial justice, mental health, gender equity and climate change, [11] President Obama recognized Siagatonu with a Champion of Change Award in 2012. [5] She spoke at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. [5] [12] [13] One of her concerns is Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano.
Her work as a Kundiman Fellow and 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 List Honoree, was published in Poetry Magazine and was featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, KQED, Everyday Feminism, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy.
Siagatonu is a queer Samoan woman and activist. She spoke at the Obama White House and to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. She stated that the most memorable moment in her career was receiving President Obama’s Champion of Change Award in 2012. [14]
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.
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.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a Canadian-American poet, writer, educator and social activist. Their writing and performance art focuses on documenting the stories of queer and trans people of color, abuse survivors, mixed-race people and diasporic South Asians and Sri Lankans. A central concern of their work is the interconnection of systems of colonialism, abuse and violence. They are also a writer and organizer within the disability justice movement.
Audrey Teuki Teupuariki Tuioti Brown-Pereira is a Cook Islands diplomat, public servant, and poet, of Cook Islands, Maori and Samoan descent.
Yosimar Reyes is a Mexican-born poet and activist. He is a queer undocumented immigrant who was born in Guerrero, Mexico, and raised in East San Jose, California. Reyes has been described as "a voice that shines light on the issues affecting queer immigrants in the U.S. and throughout the world."
Chinaka Hodge is an American poet, educator, playwright and screenwriter. She has received national recognition for her publications, especially her artistic work on gentrification.
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.
Dan Taulapapa McMullin is an American Samoan artist, known for their poetry, visual art and film. Their major themes are their indigenous Samoan heritage and their fa'afafine gender identity. McMullin has been creating literary and artistic works for over 35 years, and has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants. They work in a variety of literary styles and visual art modes. In their adult life, they have spent time in Los Angeles, and now live with their partner in Laguna, California, and Hudson, New York.
Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a poet and climate change activist from the Marshall Islands.
Franny Choi is an American writer, poet and playwright.
Edwin Bodney is an American slam poet and author of the book A Study of Hands. He is one of the hosts of Da Poetry Lounge.
Shannon Webb-Campbell is Canadian writer, poet and editor. She is descended from Miꞌkmaq people from the Qalipu First Nation in Newfoundland.
Lehua M. Taitano is a Chamoru poet, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. She is an indigenous person of the Mariana Islands, which are referred to as Laguås yan Gani in the Chamoru language.
Smokii Sumac is a Ktunaxa and transmasculine poet whose first book of poetry, you are enough: love poems for the end of the world was published in 2018 by Kegedonce Press. The unpublished draft manuscript of the book, then titled "#haikuaday," won the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished English Poetry, while the book itself was awarded the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award for English Poetry.
The National Youth Poet Laureate is a title held in the United States by a young person who demonstrates skill in the arts, particularly poetry and/or spoken word, is a strong leader, is committed to social justice, and is active in civic discourse and advocacy. It is a title awarded annually to one winner among four finalists, most of whom have been chosen as the Poet Laureate for their city and region.
Porsha Olayiwola is a Black American poet based in Boston, Massachusetts.
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.
Amao Leota Lu is a Samoan fa’afafine, who is a performance artist, poet and community activist.
Janae Johnson is a writer, cultural worker, and DJ from Sacramento, California.
Safiya Sinclair is a Jamaican poet and memoirist. Her debut poetry collection, Cannibal, won several awards, including a Whiting Award for poetry in 2016 and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for poetry in 2017. She is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Arizona State University.