Poetry Slam - Academia and Slam

Academia and Slam

As of 2011, four poets who have competed at National Poetry Slam have won National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Fellowships for Literature:

• Hal Sirowitz (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1993) 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) won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2003
• Adrienne Su (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1991) won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2007
• Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (who was on the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam team in 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2010) won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2011

A number of poets belong to both academia and slam: as noted above Jeffrey McDaniel slammed on several poetry slam teams, and has since published several books and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College; Patricia Smith, a four-time national slam champion, went on to win several prestigious literary awards, including being nominated for the 2008 National Book Award, and being inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent in 2006; Bob Holman founded the Nuyorican Poetry Slam has taught for years at the New School, Bard, Columbia and NYU; Craig Arnold won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and has competed at slams; Kip Fulbeck, a professor of Art at the University of California, Santa Barbara competed in slam in the early-1990s and initiated the first spoken word course to be taught as part of a college art program's core curriculum; and poet/academics such as Michael Salinger, Felice Belle, Javon Johnson, Susan B. Anthony Somers-Willett, Robbie Q. Telfer, Phil West, Ragan Fox, and Karyna McGlynn have devoted much attention to the merging of the poetry slam community and the academic community in their respective works.

Some renowned poets have competed in slams, with less successful results. Henry Taylor, winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, competed in the 1997 National Poetry Slam as an individual and placed 75th out of 150.

While slam poetry has often been ignored in traditional higher learning institutions, it slowly is finding its way into courses and programs of study. For example, at Berklee College of Music, in Boston, Slam Poetry is now available as a Minor course of study.