We're excited to celebrate ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe -- a seminal volume of poetry published in 1994 of work performed at the historic Nuyorican Poets Cafe at the dawn (and in some cases at dawn) of spoken word poetry and poetry slams as we know them today.
The current line up for our show includes guest host, poet Bob Holman and songwriters:
Beth Bliss
Liz Casanova
Ralph Denzer
John S. Hall (King Missile)
Tanja Höhne
Susan Hwang (BBC Founder)
Puma Perl
and others!
Check back to this blog, our event listing and the Tompkins Square Library listing as we finalize the bill!
We'll also be sharing selections from the 260 poems as we get closer to our event!
Here is award-winning poet, author, playwright and performance artist Patricia Smith's persona poem written from the perspective of a male, white supremacist "Skinhead" (p. 277, ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe)
Smith's powerful performance of this piece on the Def Poetry series: