Speak Bloody! presents Write Bloody authors who have been hugely influential in the slam movement. Beau Sia, Tara Hardy, Mike McGee, Mindy Nettifee, and Jeremy Radin will show you five different approaches to performance poetry, demonstrating the full variety and power of spoken word.
Beau Sia has appeared on all seasons of HBO’s ‘Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry‘ and performed on Showtime! at The Apollo and the 2003 Tony Awards. Sia began performing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, earning himself a place on the 1996 Nuyorican poetry slam team. That same year, he would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation. He won two National Poetry Slam Championships in 1997 and 2000 while competing on the NYC-Urbana slam team. He would also reach second place in the Individual Poetry Slam competition in 2001.
In 2012, Beau released his first book in 15 years on Write Bloody. It is called The Undisputed Greatest Writer of All Time. This will be Beau’s first-ever Vancouver performance.
Tara Hardy is the working-class queer femme poet, the founder and current creative director of Bent, a writing institute for LGBTIQ people based in Seattle. In 2002, she was named Seattle’s Poet Populist, or poet of the people. She holds an MFA from Vermont College in fiction writing, and an MSW from the University of Michigan in community organizing. Tara is a daughter of the United Auto Workers, and worked in the Battered Women’s Movement for 15 years. Tara’s much-anticipated Write Bloody book Bring Down the Chandeliers was released in 2011.
Mike McGee won the coveted National Poetry Slam Individual Grand Championship in 2003. In 2006, McGee became the first person to win two separate individual titles by also being crowned the Individual World Poetry Slam Champion. He has performed his ‘stand-up poetry’ in thousands of venues all over North America, and was one of the first Americans ever to perform poetry at the University la Sorbonne in Paris, France. Write Bloody recently released the second edition of Mike’s book “In Search of Midnight”.
Mindy Nettifee is the award-winning writer and performance poet BUST Magazine calls “the lingustic orgasm we’ve all been waiting for.” She is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Sleepyhead Assassins and Rise of the Trust Fall, and the collection of essays on writing Glitter She is a cast member of the groundbreaking performance poetry tours The Last Nerve and The Whirlwind Company, and the director of the nonprofit Write Now Poetry Society.
This show will also include a mini-feature from Jeremy Radin. You may have seen Jeremy on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or CSI. His first book on Write Bloody is Slow Dance with Sasquatch.
[box]No minors allowed. This show is 19+[/box]
[box]Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Or you could buy a festival pass.[/box]