Of the many poets appearing in SlamNation, the following are featured most prominently.
Saul Williams/Team New York City
Saul’s appearance in SlamNation helped land him the starring role in the movie Slam which he co-wrote and which won the Grand Jury Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival as well as the Camera d’Or at Cannes. He has also appeared with Kevin Spacey in the film K-Pax, on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and is a recurring character on the UPN television show “Girlfriends”. He has three published books and 2 music CDs Amethyst Rock Star and Saul Williams, and his poetry is part of the curriculum at universities and high schools across the US.
Links
www.saulwilliams.com
African American Literature
Book Club
Saul’s book of poems, She
Time Out New York Interview with
Saul Williams
Saul’s poem “Ohm”
Saul and KRS-Online
Saul’s Video List of Demands
Wikipedia
Review on “Saul Williams”
Interviews
The Oregonian
Mother Jones
The Academy of American Poets
Cincinnati’s City Beat
Taylor Mali/Team Providence
Taylor has won the National Poetry Slam Team Championships four times. Since putting his teaching career on hold, he has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, won Best One-Man Show at the US Comedy Arts Festival, and currently makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist. He is the spokesman for teaching’s nobility, the poet laureate of passion in the classroom.
Links
www.taylormali.com
Taylor’s home venue, Urbana
Education World publishes Taylor’s “Objection Overruled”
Beau Sia/Team New York City
Beau Sia was one of the original cast members in Russell Simmon’s Def Poetry Jam, on Broadway, a 2003 Tony Award winner. He also appeared in It’s Showtime at the Apollo, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, the film Slam and has two spoken-word CD’s Attack! Attack! Go! and Dope and Wack and the book of poetry A Night Without Armor II: The Revenge.
Links
www.beausia.com
Beau’s Book A Night Without Armor II: The Revenge
louderarts bio and poems
MP3’s of 8-year-old Reject and What I Did Last Summer
Interviews
Radio Poetry
Philadelphia Citypaper
Marc Smith/Chicago SlamMaster
In 1986, at Chicago’s Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Marc Smith (So What!) started a Sunday night poetry show called the Uptown Poetry Slam. That show and the movement it inspired have revolutionized how poetry is presented and received in public performance. He is the “Slampapi,” the father of the slam and the genesis of performance poetry. His book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry is the Bible of the what, why and how this international movement came into existence and evolved.
Links
Chicago Center Stage Interview
Books by Marc Smith
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry
The Spoken Word Revolution: Slam, Hip Hop & Poetry of a New Generation
Patricia Smith /Team Boston
Patricia Smith received national notoriety after she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for her work as a columnist for The Boston Globe and it was discovered that some of her stories were fabricated.The nomination was subsequently withdrawn, and she was demonized by the press. She had won the National Individual Slam Championships four times.
Books
Life According to Motown.
Big Towns, Big Talk.
Close to Death.
Africans in America: America’s
Journey Through Slavery.
Poems
“Asking for a Heart Attack”
“Sweet Daddy“
muMs the schemer/Team New York City
Hailing from the Bronx, muMs is a writer, performance artist, poet, playwright, actor and filmmaker. He was one of the stars of the HBO dramatic series Oz and appeared in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. He wrote and appeared in the short film Morning Breath, which received an honorable mention at the Sundance Film Festival.
Links
Biography at African American Literature Book Club
Purchase films starring muMs
HBO interviews Mums
Mums’ poem “Cigarettes” from Episode 1 of Oz.
Alexandra Oliver/Team Vancouver
Alexandra Oliver was one quarter of Vancouver’s first Slam Team at the Nationals in Portland in 1996. A poet since the age of six, she lives in Vancouver, Canada, where she teaches Academic Preparation and Creative Writing at Langara College and studies Argentine tango.
