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Each of these poets have websites and there are links here to find out more about them.

Allan Wolf                                                    Danez Smith

Glenis Redmond                                         Andrea Gibson

Shane Koyczan                                           Mahogany L. Browne

And if you want to know more about slam poetry, here are a few of links.

Slam Poetry - Wikipedia                              Poetry Foundation - Slam

Poetry Power - What is Slam?                    Britannica - Slam Poetry

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Copyright © 2016 by Mahogany Browne. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 25, 2016 by the Academy of American Poets.

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Once upon a time,

You and all your kind lived underneath bridges,

Had ridges for ribs that dropped off into empty chests as if your Hearts were all stolen treasures,

As if an excavation crew were hired to dig up and remove the part Of you that let you feel.

And while the world above you invented the wheel, you stayed put,

Knowing it would one day need to roll over top of you to get to Where it's going.

You had an endlessly flowing supply line of food.

You began to brood over humanity and made meals of our hope,

As if crushing our spirits would make your mirrors cast better Reflections than the ones they gave,

As if the only way you could save yourselves was to make the world Ugly so no one would notice you hiding in it.

You learned to knit pain into a kind of camouflage, Treated hope like a mirage that you could use to lure in your next meal.

You lived off of our fears, as if you could taste what we feel.

And every night, as the moon read bedtime stories to sunlight.

You took darkness as an invite to head out into the world,

You curled your hands into wrecking balls, your breath became Squalls, you made rocks rumble,

you made land shiver

You made boys and girls pray that someone would deliver them From you

We told them you aren't real.

Then one day, the world changed, but you all stayed the same.

Just migrated from living underneath bridges to living underneath Information super-highways.

Days and nights became meaningless, each already deepened Chest became an abyss that no one would ever find the bottom of.

Concepts like love fell into your gravity, we turned ourselves into Live preservers, hoping to save as many as we could,

But the fathers who stood guarding closet doors and the mothers Who secured the floors underneath beds,

All shook their heads not knowing how to deal with you.

You, who crept into our lives with tongues like knives stabbing your Words into our skin.

You began to begin uploading yourselves into our homes you had Computer screens for eyes, and software for bones.

You turned your hate into stones and hurled them at beauty,

As if you couldn't bear to see anything other than ugly, anything Different.

You had fingernails like flint, and scraped them along decency hoping we would be the ones to all catch fire.

You all had smiles like one-way barbed wire not meant to keep us Out,

Meant to keep us in

Voice like a firing pin, you spoke in explosions

It isn't cute. It isn't funny.

You've talked strangers into death, and laughed.

And as each family learns to graft skin over the wounds you gave them, you hem yourselves into the scar.

You have coaxed the sober back into bars,

Handed out cigars at memorials,

Offered nooses, cliffs, and pills to those who unfortunately found You before they found help.

You have praised suffering,

Waltzed in between tragedies,

Gracefully dipping misery as if we would somehow be impressed With the dexterity of your animosity.

You have cheered on rape, dashed through police tape as if it were The finish line in a race of who can be awful first.

Even now,

You somehow see this as an invitation to turn your keyboards into Catapults,

Wondering which of you can be the first to hate this best.

Your loathing, already dressed in riot gear,

Ready to incite rage,

As if each message board is a stage,

Where you recite hostility,

Turning freedom of speech into freedom of cruelty.

We are stuck with you, the same way you are stuck with you.

Your mind is glue, and it keeps malice fastened there like cheap Wallpaper.

We were once upon a time told that none of you exist, we Dismissed you as make believe or myth.

Now armed only with resolve, we can no longer afford to tell Ourselves that you aren't real.

We will not let you make your dinners out of the things we feel.

℗ 2012 Shane Koyczan, in Stickboy

Shane is an excellent writer for the marginalized and depressed. Anyone who has felt as an outsider or bullied can relate to this and his other poems.

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Asking Too Much

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with

Tell me why you loved them,

then tell me why they loved you

Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through

Tell me what the word “home” means to you

And tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name

just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8

See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate

And if that day still trembles beneath your bones

Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain

or bounce in the bellies of snow?

And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree

to build your snowman arms?

Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree?

And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you

because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek?

Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?

Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad,

even if it makes your lover mad?

Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion

or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?

See, I wanna know what you think of your first name

And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time

I want you tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.

Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.

Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school.

If you were walking by a chemical plant, where smoke stacks

were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would you whisper,

“That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy”?

Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?

Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?

And if you don’t believe in miracles,

tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?

– Andrea Gibson

Asking Too Much · Andrea Gibson Bullets and Windchimes ℗ 2003 Andrea Gibson

Andrea's poem is one way a person can experience love for another human, and they way they write makes it easy for another human to grasp the depth of love felt.

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Glenis is the recipient of South Carolina’s highest award in the arts, The Governor’s Award. She  is a Kennedy Center teaching artist and Cave Canem poet. She is a past winner of the Southern Fried Poetry Slam twice and a top ten finalist in the National Poetry Slam. She performs her poem Praise Dave here in honor of enslaved poet/potter, David Drake.

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"Praise Dave" for enslaved potter-poet by Glenis Redmond

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Allan performs his love letter to books in this poem performance. Allan is considered the Godfather of the Poetry Slam in the Southeast, hosting the National Poetry Slam in 1994, forming the National Championship Team in 1995, and founding the Southern Fried Poetry Slam (now in it’s 28th year).

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The Greatest Nation On Earth by Allan Wolf

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In this performance, Andrea reads their poem Orlando about the shooting at the gay club, Pulse, where 49 people were massacred. She is accompanied by Mary Lambert. This piece will move you to tears.

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Andrea Gibson performs "Orlando" featuring Mary Lambert

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Danez performs Waiting on You to Die, a poem about not being able to be your true self until after a family member dies. Smith is a 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and the reigning two-time Rustbelt Individual Champion, and was on the 2014 championship team Sad Boy Supper Club.

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Danez Smith: waiting on you to die so i can be myself

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You can find many different performances of this poem, To This Day. Each one is slightly different and all will touch your heart. If you've ever been bullied, you will feel this in your gut.

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"To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful | Shane Koyczan

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While Mahogany  has been around writing and performing for a while, her poem Black Girl Magic is one that thrust her further into the limelight. Mahogany L. Browne's poem "'Black Girl Magic" as read by the poet. Part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation's Read By series of poetry films. Directed by Matthew Thompson and produced in collaboration with 92nd Street Y's Unterberg Poetry Center. Find out more at https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/.

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I first heard Glenis in 2016 when I met her at Kanuga in Hendersonville, NC and have followed her on social media. She is one powerful poet.

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I have known Allan since 1994 when I met him in Asheville, NC. I have been to his readings at Malaprops several times over the years and, years ago, he held a poetry slam workshop at a school where I taught.

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I met Andrea Gibson in 2013 and have been to several of their shows since then.

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Danez Smith was one of two keynote speakers at a conference I attended in 2019. Their poetry is hard and full of punch.

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What Matters Most
A Poem for Teachers

If you believe that you can teach
and students can be taught,
let all you do be guided by
those two essential thoughts.

If you feel overwhelmed and lost,
with nothing up your sleeve,
before you ask, What shall I do?
ask, What do I believe?

And let your heart be guided by
these two repeated thoughts:
I believe that I can teach
and students can be taught.

- Allan Wolf

Copyright © 2020 Allan Wolf

Allan writes a lot for kids these days; this one is not. This poem spoke to me as a veteran teacher knowing that teachers are getting a bad rap these days, despite all the love most carry into their classrooms each day.

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I heard Shane for the first time in Lake Lanier, GA in 2013. He has a TedTalk and In 2000, he became the first Canadian to win the Individual Championship title at the beach National Poetry Slam.

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I met Mahogany L. Browne in October 2022. She performed several of her poems and brought me to tears.

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How to Become a Slam Poet in 5 Easy Steps

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How to Become a Slam Poet in 5 Easy Steps

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Become a slam poet in five steps - Gayle Danley

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acknowledgments

BY DANEZ SMITH

you save me half a bag of skins, the hard parts, my fav, dusted orange with hot

•

you say we can’t go to the bar cause you’re taking your braids out

i come over, we watch madea while we pull you from you

•

you make us tacos with the shells i like & you don’t

•

i get too drunk at the party, you scoop my pizza from the sink with a solo cup, all that red

•

you, in the morning, bong water grin, wet chin

•

you, in the lawless dark, laughing like a room of women laugh

at a man who thinks his knowledge is knowledge

•

i text you & you say, i was bout to text you, bitch

•

you cook pork chops same way i do, our families in another city go to the same church

•

you, rolling a blunt, holding your son, is a mecca

•

you invite me out for drag queens on the nights i think of finally [ ]

•

you pull over in Mississippi so i can walk a road my grandfather bled on

•

you gave me a stone turtle, it held your palm’s scent for a week

•

i call your mama mama

•

you request like a demand, make me some of that mango cornbread

i cut the fruit, measure the honey

•

you & you & you & you go in on a dildo for my birthday

you name it drake, you know me

•

a year with you in that dirty house with that cracked-out cat was a good year

•

at the function, i feel myself splitting into too many rooms of static

you touch my hand & there i am

•

do you want to be best friends?

a box for yes, a box for no

•

did our grandmothers flee the fields of embers so we could find each other here?

friend, you are the war’s gentle consequence

•

i am the prison that turns to rain in your hands

•

you, at my door the night my father leapt beyond what we know

you, dirt where i plant my light

•

the branches of silence are heavy with your sweet seed

•

you smell like the milk of whatever beast i am

•

your poop is news, your fart is news, your gross body my favorite song

•

you, drunk as an uncle, making all kinds of nonsense sense

i listen for the language between your words

•

& when we fight, not a ring, but a room with no exit

we spill the blood & bandage the wound, clean burns with our tongues

•

if luck calls your name, we split the pot

& if you wither, surely i rot

•

we hate the same people, we say nigga please with the same mouth

•

& before we were messy flesh, i’m sure we were the same dust

•

everywhere you are is a church, & i am the pastor, the deacons, the mothers fainting at the altar

•

as long as i am a fact to you, death can do with me what she wants

•

my body, water, your body, a trail of hands carrying the river to the sea

•

i ink your name into my arm to fasten what is already there

•

i would love you even if you killed god

•

you made coming out feel like coming in from the storm

•

you are the country i bloody the hills for

•

you love me despite the history of my hands, their mangled confession

•

at the end of the world, let there be you, my world

•

god bless you who screens all my nudes, drafts my break-up text

•

you are the drug that knocks the birds from my heart

•

ain’t no mountain, no valley, no river i wouldn’t give the hands for comin’ to you sideways

•

o the horrid friends who were just ships harboring me to you

•

& how many times have you loved me without my asking?

how often have i loved a thing because you loved it?

including me

•

& i always knew

•

with yo ugly ass

Homie, by Danez Smith ℗ 2020

Danez captures the whole of a love relationship in clips that feel like tweets. All the good and ugly are here wrapped in love and delivered in spitted phrases.

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J Elizabeth Ballard

Media Center Specialist

Flat Rock Middle School

Flat Rock, NC

jeballard@uncg.edu