Roger Bonair-Agard is a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

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 Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, and

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. 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"."Masquerade: Calypso and Home", 2011 All ForOne Theater Festival.
/ref> He studied

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, and was about to take the

Law School Admission Test The Law School Admission Test (LSAT; ) is a standardized test administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for prospective law school candidates. It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical and verbal reas ...

when he decided to concentrate on poetry rather than a law career. He was a member of the 1997

Nuyorican Poets Cafe Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, or of their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the N ...

Poetry Slam 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. ...

team and later coached the 1998

team, which went on to win the

National Poetry Slam The National Poetry Slam (NPS) is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and, occasionally, Europe and Australia, participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and ...

Championship that year in Austin, TX.Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe (2008), "Chapter 19: And Two Become Three; Mouth Almighty Becomes NYC-Urbana and Nuyo's Championship Team Becomes louderARTS" in ''Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam.''

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

: Soft Skull Press. . He then co-founded th
louderARTS Project
and has been on the 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 louderARTS Poetry Slam teams.Aptowicz, "New York City Slam Teams from 1990 to 2007" in ''Words in Your Face'', 2008. In 1999, he won the individual competition at the

. He was formerly the Artistic Director for louderARTS. He has also been Adjunct Professor in the Creative Writing Department at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

. Over the past decade he has worked with the youth at Urban Word in

, at Volume in

Ann Arbor Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...

and with poetry youth organizations in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, and the Adirondack Valley, NY. Bonair-Agard is also a

Cave Canem Beware of the dog (also rendered as Beware of dog) is a warning sign indicating that a dangerous dog is within. Such signs may be placed to deter burglary even if there is no dog. History Warning signs of this sort have been found in Ancien ...

fellow, and has studied under

Yusef Komunyakaa Yusef Komunyakaa (born James William Brown; April 29, 1941) is an American poet who teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for ''Neo ...

Cornelius Eady Cornelius Eady (born 1954) is an American writer focusing largely on matters of Race (classification of human beings), race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questi ...

Marilyn Nelson Marilyn Nelson (born April 26, 1946) is an American poet, translator, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former poet laureate of Connecticut, She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry ...

Toi Derricotte Toi Derricotte (pronounced ''DARE-ah-cot'' ) (born April 12, 1941) is an American poet. She is the author of six poetry collections and a literary memoir. She has won numerous literary awards, including the 2020 Frost Medal for distinguished lifet ...

, and Patricia Smith. He currently teaches creative writing with the Free Write Arts & Literacy Program at the

Cook County, Illinois Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...

Temporary Juvenile Detention Center in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

.http://freewriteartsliteracy.org/team/

Sexual misconduct allegations

Bonair-Agard published a poem to his personal website in 2010, written in first-person, about a man assaulting a woman. In 2013, one of Bonair-Agard's coworkers at Young Chicago Authors accused him of rape. This allegation brought about public concern that the organization was a danger to the youth it served. A survivor's account of abuse by Bonair-Agard is published in the 2017

Rutgers University Press Rutgers University Press (RUP) is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in New Brunswick, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University. History Rutgers University Press, a nonprofit academic publishing house operating in New B ...

book ''Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities'' by

Javon Johnson Javon Johnson is an American spoken word poet, writer, and professor. He is the director of African American and African Diaspora Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, an ...

. On December 21, 2020, the organization Free Write Arts & Literacy released this statement, "In 2016, Free Write leadership promoted Roger to a position of leadership where he remained until early December 2020 when his employment was terminated. For six years, we chose not to stand in solidarity with survivors of harm and instead protected an abuser. We told ourselves that the internal work we were doing to design policy and structures to account for the harm was “transformative” when really it was insufficient and cowardly, with no public accountability offered to the community. This caused further harm caused to talented, trusted Free Write staff members and community partners, some of whom unwittingly found themselves in proximity to the employee while simply doing their jobs with Free Write, while others who strongly advocated for accountability were ignored or placated." The organization added to their statement on February 17, 2021. On February 24, 2021, another poet and YCA coworker of Bonair-Agard's came forward to accuse him of rape. In March 2021,

Chicago Public Schools Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the third-largest school district in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles. ...

suspended its partnership with Young Chicago Authors, due to the allegations against Bonair-Agard, as well as the outcries from the poetry community, including a statement from the president of

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 ca ...

, alleging that leadership within the YCA organization knew Bonair-Agard was dangerous and did not act. This triggered journalism by

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...

that logged two decades of survivors' accounts of abuse by predators affiliated with YCA.

Bibliography

*''Where Brooklyn At?'', 2016, Aquarius Press *''Bury My Clothes'', 2013,

Haymarket Books Haymarket Books is a left-wing non-profit, independent book publisher based in Chicago. History Haymarket Books was founded in 2001 by Anthony Arnove, Ahmed Shawki and Julie Fain, all of whom had previously worked at the '' International Sociali ...

*''Gully'', 2010, Peepal Tree Press *''Tarnish and Masquerade'', 2006, Cypher Books *''Burning Down the House'', 2000, Soft Skull Press, co-authored with Stephen Colman, Guy Lecharles Gonzalez,

Alix Olson Alix L. Olson (born 1975) is an American poet who works exclusively in spoken word. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1997 and uses her work to address issues of capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, misogyny, and patria ...

, and Lynne Procope

Discography

*''List in a Valley of Bone: New and Selected Poem Recordings'' (2009) *''Chantuel'' *''NYC Slams'' *''5 Past 13''

Filmography

*The 2000 National Poetry Slam Finals – 2000
Poetry Slam Inc.
*Poetry slam – 1999, Princeton: Films for the Humanities & Sciences (with

David Deutsch David Elieser Deutsch ( ; born 18 May 1953) is a British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation (CQC) in the Clarendon Laboratory of ...

Elizabeth Farnsworth Elizabeth Farnsworth (born 1943) is an American journalist and author of the memoir, A Train Through Time – A Life, Real and Imagined' (February, 2017). Early life and education Farnsworth was born Elizabeth Fink in Minneapolis, Minnesota, an ...

, and Ariana Waynes).

References

External links

The louderARTS ProjectRoger's JournalAudio of "How Do We Spell Freedom?," "Southpaw," "Andrew Jackson's Statue, French Quarter New Orleans" and "Soul" (among others) on Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonair-Agard, Roger Trinidad and Tobago poets Trinidad and Tobago emigrants to the United States Hunter College alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Poets from Illinois Violence against women in the United States African-American poets American male poets Living people Stonecoast MFA alumni 21st-century African-American people African-American male writers