Poetry
Aptowicz was introduced to the New York City Poetry Slam community by NYU classmate, Beau Sia. In November 1998, at age 19, she founded the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam series. NYC-Urbana was the formal continuation of a poetry slam series started by Bob Holman and as of 2008, has earned three National Poetry Slam Championships: 1997 (as Team Mouth Almighty), 2000 and 2002. Aptowicz was a member of the 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2010 NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam teams. Well-known poets who have been on NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam teams including Taylor Mali, Beau Sia, Anis Mojgani and Sarah Kay, among others. Aptowicz was also the 2010 Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWps) representative for NYC-Urbana. As of 2010, NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam is still held weekly at the Bowery Poetry Club. Aptowicz currently runs the series with Taylor Mali, Shappy Seasholtz and Jeanann Verlee.
Aptowicz is the author of six books of poetry, including the forthcoming The Year of No Mistakes which will be released by Write Bloody Publishing in Fall 2013. Aptowicz's previous book of poetry was Everything is Everything, which Write Bloody Publishing released in January 2010. In 2011, Write Bloody Publishing also re-released Aptowicz's first four books -- Dear Future Boyfriend (2000), Hot Teen Slut (2001), Working Class Represent (2003) and Oh, Terrible Youth (2007) -- which had originally been published by the Ann Arbor basement press, The Wordsmith Press.
Aptowicz appeared in the concert film Taylor Mali & Friends Live at the Bowery Poetry Club and in the documentary Slam Planet (2006). In 2003, she served the overseas mentor for Mouth Off!, a youth poetry show commissioned by the Sydney Opera House. She frequently tours with poets Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani on their "poetry revival tours," joining them on their 2008 Junkyard Ghost Revival tour, 2009 Elephant Engine High Dive Revival tour and 2010 Night Kite Revival tour.
In November 2010, it was announced that Aptowicz had been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. She is one of only handful of "slam poets" who have won NEA grants. As of 2011, the other poets are Hal Sirowitz (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1993, and won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 1994); Jeffrey McDaniel (who was on numerous DC and California slam teams in the mid to late 1990s, and won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2003); and Adrienne Su (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1991, and won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2007).
In February 2012, it was announced that Aptowicz had been awarded the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency. The residency takes place in the former residence of poet Amy Clampitt and provides "an established or emerging poet or literary scholar with the rare gift of extended time and a reasonable stipend so that he or she may substantially further his or her creative work." Aptowicz is the first poet from a poetry slam background to be awarded this residency.
Read more about this topic: Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“For me, poetry is always a search for order.”
—Elizabeth Jennings (b. 1926)
“Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity to history, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Poetry, and Picture, are Arts of a like nature; and both are busie about imitation. It was excellently said of Plutarch, Poetry was a speaking Picture, and Picture a mute Poesie. For they both invent, faine, and devise many things, and accommodate all they invent to the use, and service of nature. Yet of the two, the Pen is more noble, than the Pencill. For that can speake to the Understanding; the other, but to the Sense.”
—Ben Jonson (1573–1637)