I have found the spoken word poetry of Denice Frohman. I bring her to you. She's from NYC and works in Philadelphia. The first performance I stumbled on was Dear Straight People from her preliminary performance at Women of the World Poetry Slam 2013. Weapons, also from this year's Women of the World. She won the championship. This is the finals. The editing is terrible, but she comes on at 7:16. And the other ladies are also awesome. [more inside]
posted by bilabial on Apr 4, 2013 - 10 comments

Numerous artists come together to animate an Shane Koyczan's fantastic performance of his anti-bullying poem, To This Day. More info at To This Day Project.
posted by dobbs on Feb 20, 2013 - 11 comments

Poet and Educational Consultant Mark Grist - Girls who read.
posted by lazaruslong on Feb 13, 2012 - 20 comments

The spoken-word poetry (and music) of Sarah Kay: "B". "Hand Me Downs". "Not Just Another Math Problem". "Scaffolding". [more inside]
posted by dolca on Apr 15, 2009 - 26 comments

"Not until I put them there." David Antin worked in a wide range of innovative modes until landing in the early 1970s on what he calls the talk poem. Antin speaks extemporaneously and then transcribes his talks using only space as punctuation. The implications of positioning these works as poetry are, of course, part of the point.
posted by roll truck roll on Apr 14, 2009 - 15 comments

Gorgeous - a spoken word poem by Rives. {via TED Talks}
posted by dobbs on Dec 24, 2006 - 5 comments

In the late Seventies and Early Eighties, Dial-a-Poem put out recordings of William S. Burroughs, John Giorno, Sonic Youth, Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Diamanda Galas, Anne Walderman, Charles Bukowski, Amiri Baraka, Gregory Corso, Phillip Glass, Patti Smith, and many many more. Apparently, the incredibly awesome Ubuweb has streaming mp3s of all twelve Dial-A-Poem releases here. Yay!
posted by elr on Sep 1, 2006 - 14 comments

The Language of Saxophones At 55, L.A. musician and poet Kamau Daáood is finally beginning to acknowledge the possibility of his own place in local letters with his debut book of poetry, The Language of Saxophones, a 30-plus-year retrospective published by City Lights. Though he’s recorded a solo CD and read nationally and internationally, Daáood had never seen fit to collect his material in a book. Until now. “I never liked the idea of poetry sitting on a shelf somewhere, lost in all those book spines”.
posted by matteo on Apr 17, 2005 - 2 comments