The BreakBeat Poets

Hip-Hop is the largest youth culture in the history of the planet rock. This is the first poetry anthology by and for the Hip-Hop generation.

It has produced generations of artists who have revolutionized their genre(s) by applying the aesthetic innovations of the culture. The BreakBeat Poets features 78 poets, born somewhere between 1961-1999, All-City and Coast-to-Coast, who are creating the next and now movement(s) in American letters.

The BreakBeat Poets is for people who love Hip-Hop, for fans of the culture, for people who've never read a poem, for people who thought poems were only something done by dead white dudes who got lost in a forest, and for poetry heads. This anthology is meant to expand the idea of who a poet is and what a poem is for.

The BreakBeat Poets are the scribes recording and remixing a fuller spectrum of experience of what it means to be alive in this moment. The BreakBeat Poets are a break with the past and an honoring of the tradition(s), an undeniable body expanding the canon for the fresher.

Auteur

Kevin Coval is the author of Schtick, L-vis Lives: Racemusic Poems, Everyday People and the American Library Association Book of the Year" Finalist Slingshots: A Hip-Hop Poetica. He is the founder of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, Artistic Director at Young Chicago Authors, and teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Quraysh Ali Lansana is the author of eight poetry books, three textbooks, a children's book, editor of eight anthologies, and coauthor of a book of pedagogy. He is a faculty member of the Creative Writing Program of the School of the Art Institute and the Red Earth MFA Creative Writing Program at Oklahoma City University. He is also a former faculty member of the Drama Division of The Juilliard School. Lansana served as Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University from 2002-2011, where he was also Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing. Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (with Georgia A. Popoff) was published in March 2011 by Teachers & Writers Collaborative and was a 2012 NAACP Image Award nominee. His most recent books include The Walmart Republic w/ Christopher Stewart and reluctant minivan.

Nate Marshall is the author of Wild Hundreds. He won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and served as a Zell Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan. A Cave Canem Fellow, Nate won the 2014 Hurston/Wright Founding Members Award and the 2013 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. He is a founding member of the poetry collective Dark Noise. He is also a rapper.

Contenu

Joel Dias Porter aka DJ Renegade (1962) was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, and was a professional DJ in the DC area. From 1994- 1999 I competed in the National Poetry Slam, and was the 1998 and 99 Haiku Slam Champion. Places my poems have been published include Time Magazine, The Washington Post, Callaloo, Antioch Review, Red Brick Review, Beltway Quarterly and the anthologies Gathering Ground, Love Poetry Out Loud, Meow: Spoken Word from the Black Cat, Short Fuse, Role Call, Def Poetry Jam, 360 Degrees of Black Poetry, Slam (The Book), Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapallooza, Poetry Nation, Beyond the Frontier, Spoken Word Revolution, Catch a Fire, and The Black Rooster Social Inn, an anthology of poems and photos of visual art. In 1995, I received the Furious Flower "Emerging Poet Award" from James Madison University. Performances include the Today Show, the documentary SlamNation, on BET, and in the feature film Slam. A Cave Canem fellow and the father of a young son, I have a CD of jazz and poetry on Black Magi Music, entitled "LibationSong".

Evie Shockley (1965) was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, poet Evie Shockley earned a BA at Northwestern University, a JD at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in English literature at Duke University. The author of several collections of poetry, including a half-red sea (2006) and the new black (2011), Shockley is also the author of the critical volume Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (2011). Her poetry and essays have been featured in several anthologies, including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), Poets on Teaching: A Sourcebook (2010), A Broken Thing: Contemporary Poets on the Line (2011), and Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon (2013). Shockley's honors include the Holmes National Poetry Prize and fellowships from Cave Canem, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. Coeditor of the journal jubilat from 2004 to 2007, Shockley is a professor at Rutgers University. She lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Patrick Rosal (1969) is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Boneshepherds (Persea, 2011), recognized as a 2012 notable book both by the National Book Critics Circle and the Academy of American Poets; My American Kundiman (Persea, 2006), winner of the Global Filipino Literary Award and the 2006 Book Award in Poetry from the Association of Asian American Studies; and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (Persea, 2003), winner of the Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Writers' Workshop. His poetry and prose have been published widely in journals and anthologies, including ESPN's Grantland, Tin House, American Poetry Review and Harvard Review. A former Fulbright Fellow, he is currently on the faculty of Rutgers University - Camden's MFA program and lives in Bed-Stuy.

Latasha N. Nevada Diggs (1970) Writer, vocalist, and sound aritst, Latasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of three chapbooks which include Ichi-Ban and Ni-Ban (MOH Press), and Manuel is destroying my bathroom (Belladonna Press), as well as the album, Television. Her work has published in Rattapallax, Black Renaissance Noir, Nocturnes, Polvo, Spoken Word Revolution Redux, Drumvoices Review, Long Shot, The Black Scholar, P.M.S, Bum Rush the Page, Jubilat, Everything But the Burden, Black Belt, and Tea Party Magazine to name a few. LaTasha has received scholarships, residencies, and fellowships from Cave Canem, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Naropa Institute, Caldera Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts (2003/2009), the Eben Demarest Trust, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Grant for Women. LaTasha was the poetry curator for the online arts journal, www.exittheapple.com. She is a Harlem Elohi Native.

Jason Carney (1970) has been a mainstay on the national performance poetry scene for the past ten years. Hailing from Dallas, Texas this fiery performer brings unique insights on issues of race class and gender. Using the lessons of his past he weaves together images that transform the audience. Breaking down barriers and biases so that all can have an honest conversation involving some of our nation's critical issues. Mr. Carney has performed all across our country mesmerizing audiences with his wit and conviction. Whether telling an illuminating antidote about his children or stirring the ghost of our societies past present and future his effect is riveting. Mr. Carney has appeared on several seasons of the HBO television show RUSSELL SIMMONS DEF POETS. He is a four time national poetry slam finalist. honored as a legend of slam poetry in 2006 and 2007. Jason has done six NACA conferences including two national conventions. Been seen on national geographic channel as well as local television channels across the united states. He has spoken and done workshops at high schools juvenile detention centers corporate diversity engagements as well has colleges and universities extensively in the fifty states.In a rehabilitation center in his …