Button Poetry
Button Poetry is a Minneapolis-based poetry company and independent publisher of performance poetry. They are known for their viral videos of slam poetry performances, including a performance of "OCD" by Neil Hilborn that the Knight Foundation called "the most-viewed slam performance in history." History Button Poetry was founded in 2011 by Sam Van Cook to promote performance poetry through video and social media. As of 2018 they had over 774,000 YouTube subscribers and over 1.2M Facebook followers. In 2013 they began publishing books. Button Poetry has recorded performances by Brittney Black Rose Kapri, Chrysanthemum Tran, Elliot Darrow, Crystal Valentine, Neil Hilborn, Denice Frohman, Rudy Francisco, Danez Smith, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Emi Mahmoud, Aja Monet, Imani Cezanne, Janae Johnson, Javon Johnson, Desireé Dallagiacomo, Yesika Salgado, Andrea Gibson, Rudy Francisco, Sabrina Benaim, Porsha Olayiwola, Tonya Ingram, Muggs Fogarty, Siaara Freeman, and Hanif Abdurra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neil Hilborn
Neil Hilborn (born August 8, 1990) is an American slam poet who writes and performs poetry. His poems often detail personal experiences and battles with mental illness. He is best known for his poem "OCD", which has received 75 million views online. Hilborn tours to perform his poetry at colleges and other venues. Early life Hilborn was born in Houston, Texas, and became interested in creative writing at an early age, writing his first poem when he was eight years old. As a child, he was diagnosed with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while in college. Though he did not originally use poetry as a coping mechanism, when he was a teenager his work shifted toward helping him deal with his disorders. Shortly after graduating high school, Hilborn decided to leave Houston for Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he attended Macalester College. During his sophomore year he began writing spoken word. He joined their slam poetry team and in 2011, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yesika Salgado
Yesika Salgado (born 1984) is an American poet. She is the author of poetry collections ''Corazón'', ''Tesoro'', and ''Hermosa''. She is also a co-founder of the poetry collective Chingona Fire. Early life Salgado's parents immigrated from El Salvador and she grew up in Los Angeles. Her father encouraged her reading habits, but wanted her to become a teacher. Salgado dropped out of John Marshall High School when she was 18 years old, and worked a series of retail jobs while writing her poetry. Career In 2005, Salgado started posting her work online at HipHopPoetry.com, where she had created a false identity under the name Yesika Starr. After she was banned three years later for plagiarizing a Ricardo Arjona song, the site's founder encouraged her to read at the open mic night at Da Poetry Lounge, where she began performing under her own name. In 2014, Salgado performed at the National Poetry Slam for the DPL. She later qualified for the 2016 Da Poetry Lounge Slam Team. During ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Slam Poetry
A poetry slam 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. Hip-hop music and urban culture are strong influences, and backgrounds of participants tend to be diverse. Poetry slams began in Chicago in 1984, with the first slam competition designed to move poetry recitals from academia to a popular audience. American poet Marc Smith (poet), Marc Smith, believing the poetry scene at the time was "too structured and stuffy", began experimenting by attending open-microphone poetry readings, and then turning them into slams by introducing the element of competition. The performances at a poetry slam are judged as much on enthusiasm and style as content, and poets may compete as individuals or in teams. The judging is often handled by a panel of judges, typically five, who are usually selected from the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roger Bonair-Agard
Roger Bonair-Agard is a poet and performance artist. He has made numerous television and radio appearances, has led countless workshops and lectures, and has performed his poetry at many US universities as well as at international festivals in Germany, Switzerland, Milan, and Jamaica. He has been accused of sexual abuse by multiple people, including other poets. Biography Born in Trinidad, Bonair-Agard moved to the United States in 1987, intending to begin university and eventually pursue law, but finding himself "instead exploring the seediest sides of New York City life". He studied Political Science at Hunter College, and was about to take the Law School Admission Test when he decided to concentrate on poetry rather than a law career. He was a member of the 1997 Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team and later coached the 1998 Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team, which went on to win the National Poetry Slam Championship that year in Austin, TX.Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe (2008 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louder Than A Bomb
Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival (formerly named Louder Than a Bomb) is an annual youth poetry slam in Chicago every spring. Founded in 2001 by Kevin Coval and Anna West of the nonprofit organization Young Chicago Authors. It is now the largest youth slam in the world with over 1,000 teams competing in 2014. The goal of the slam is to get diverse youth from all around the Chicago area to not only share their stories, but listen to the voices of those from other parts of the city they would otherwise never hear. Participants range in age from middle school to college, with the majority in the high school age bracket. The competing high school slam teams present four individual poems and one group piece performed by four people. Each team competes in two preliminary bouts. Four teams compete each bout. The top 16 go onto semifinals and the top 4 go onto finals. The name of the slam comes from the Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kevin Coval
Kevin Coval is an American poet. Coval is a Chicago-based writer who is known for exploring topics such as race, hip-hop culture, Chicago history, and Jewish-American identity in his work. He is also known for his appearances in four seasons of the Peabody Award-winning television series Def Poetry Jam on HBO. Education Coval attended Glenbrook North High School, graduating in 1993. After high school, Coval attended Ohio University, briefly studying abroad at Swansea University before he left school to play semi-pro basketball in Wales. Career In 1996, Coval returned to Chicago and began working different jobs to pay rent, including as a furniture delivery man, caterer, and waiter. He also began performing his poetry at open mics around the city. In 1997, Coval became a regular at open mics at the Alt-X bookstore. He went on to perform at venues such as Mad Bar, Estelle’s, and the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge. Coval was named artistic director of ''Young Chicago Authors'', ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marc Smith (poet)
Marc Kelly Smith (born 1949) is an American poet and founder of the poetry slam movement, for which he received the nickname Slam Papi. Smith was born in 1949 and grew up on the southeast side of Chicago. He attended/graduated Charles P. Caldwell Elementary School and James H. Bowen High School. Smith spent most of his young life as a construction worker, but has written poetry since he was 19. He considers himself a socialist. Uptown Poetry Slam Smith started at an open mic night at the Get Me High lounge in November 1984 called the Monday Night Poetry Reading. Even as poets scoffed at artists "performing" their work, rather than genteelly "reading" it, the event grew in popularity. Smith saw his approach as an " up yours" to establishment poets he considered snooty and effete, because at their events, "no one was listening". According to Smith, who once attended a conventional reading with his manuscripts concealed inside a newspaper, With a like-minded troupe, Smith hoste ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational
The College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) is an annual Poetry Slam tournament put on by the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) in which teams of four or five college students from different colleges and universities compete against each other. Its location changes every year. The competitive element is not the primary focus of the event; it is an opportunity for student poets to showcase their art and to develop their writing and presentation skills so as to take advantage of future opportunities in poetry. The event is inclusive, and all students are welcome. History The first CUPSI tournament was organized in 2001 by Robb Thibault. It was held at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Seven teams competed in the first tournament. The number of teams participating in CUPSI has grown since then with 53 teams competing in 2014. The 2016 competition will take place at the University of Texas at Austin on April 6–9. The increase in attendance coincides with th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large national audience. Daily broadsheet editions are printed for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The ''Post'' was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. Financier Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1933 and revived its health and reputation, work continued by his successors Katharine and Phil Graham (Meyer's daughter and son-in-law), who bought out several rival publications. The ''Post'' 1971 printing of the Pentagon Papers helped spur opposition to the Vietnam War. Subsequently, in the best-known episode in the newspaper's history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hanif Abdurraqib
Hanif Abdurraqib (born August 25, 1983) is an American poet, essayist, and cultural critic. He is the author of 2016 poetry collection ''The Crown Ain't Worth Much'' (published as Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib), the 2017 essay collection ''They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us,'' the 2019 non-fiction book, ''Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes on A Tribe Called Quest'' on the American hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, the 2019 poetry collection ''A Fortune for Your Disaster'', and the 2021 essay collection ''A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance'' which received the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tonya Ingram
Tonya Ingram (September 1, 1991 – December 30, 2022) was an American poet, author, speaker, disability activist, and mental health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ... advocate. Ingram died on December 30, 2022, waiting for a kidney transplant. Life Education Ingram was a graduate of New York University and Otis College of Art and Design. While at NYU, Ingram performed on the school's poetry slam team, which won the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Ingram founded the team alongside Eric Silver, Matthew Sparacino, and Safia Elhillo. They were coached by Mahogany L. Browne, Mahogany Browne. Performance and poetry Ingram's writing was often about Black feminism and living with Lupus and kidney failure. Ingram performed at the Nuyorican Poets C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |