SpokenWord Paris

Suzanne Allen is an artist and writing teacher born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles. In the middle of a whirlwind career in interior design in her twenties, she had a house fire, which led her back to college where she studied French, then writing, then ran away to Paris several times before finally completing an MFA in Poetry on her 37th birthday. She then followed love back to Paris, as one does, and then a few years later, dragged her heartbreak home to Long Beach—writing, publishing, and editing all the way. Her poems appear widely in print and online journals, and among other projects, she served as a coeditor for the The Bastille: The Literary Magazine of Spoken Word Paris. Her first full-length collection, We Wash Our Hands, is a self-published accidental memoir of the first year of the COVID lockdown, and this is how her Paris poems became a prequel called Awkward. It had simmered for a decade, and though all these years later she mostly stays put, she still never knows if she’s coming or going, only that she’s lucky, and grateful, and craves sleep.

David Barnes has been reading his poems aloud in Paris bars since 2003. The best of them were published last year as Poets Are Liars Who Tell The Truth (corrupt press) after extensive road-testing at the weekly open mic and writers’ community he fathered, Spoken Word Paris. Poems that bite, such as ‘Bitter Valentine’, love poems, fun poems, poems about Paris ‘who dances by numbers but longs to release jazz…’ and poems that dive into dark waters – the ties of love and suffering that bind him to family back in England, where everyone haunted their own lives. Born Reading, 1971.

Cecilia Woloch is the author of a novel and six collections of poems, most recently an expanded and updated edition of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem, which has been given multi-lingual, multi-media performances in Los Angeles, Paris, Warsaw, Athens and elsewhere; a poem from the new edition was also included in a memorial exhibit at Auschwitz -Birkenau in 2021. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Foundation, CEC/ArtsLink International and the Center for International Theatre Development, as well as a Pushcart Prize and inclusion in The Best American Poetry series. Her work has been published in translation in French, German, Polish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Hebrew and Romanes. She collaborates regularly with musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, and filmmakers. Born in Pennsylvania and raised in rural Kentucky, she has traveled the world as a poet and teacher.

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Alex Vellis (they/them) is a Greek-British poet, poetry editor, producer, playwright and installation artist.They hold an MA in Creative Writing and are an associate artist at Open School East, Margate. Vellis’ work explores queering the self, the liminal, the environment, the benthic, identity and place. Their latest book I saw a bird once follows the lives of three people as they explore futilism in a working-class world. Alex has performed nationally and internationally as a poet, on stages in Paris, London, Oxford, and Malta. They have also delivered lectures at universities and festivals on events production, being a working-class artist, and poetry in the larger sphere.Their next book where the flowers grow is set to be released in 2025 through Rebel Satori Press.

Jane Yevgenia Muschenetz resettled in the United States as a child refugee from Soviet Ukraine. Recognized in 2023 for excellence in Poetry Performance by San Diego County, Jane won the 2024 California and National Press Women Communications Prizes and the Poetry Collection of the Year from SDWF for her debut chapbook, All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents (Kelsay Books, 2023). Her 2024 feminist poetry collection, POWER POINT, is available for pre-order from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Connect with Jane and her work online at www.PalmFrondZoo.com

photo by Sabine Dundure

Malik Ameer Crumpler is a poet, composer, curator, editor & professor involved in over 60 albums, several GlitchArt films, Artbooks, literature anthologies & 9 books of Poetry.  Originally from Oakland, California Malik has lived in Paris since 2016 after 12 years in NYC co-founding, hosting & editing   Madmenscalling, Those That This & Visceral Brooklyn.  Currently, Malik is an Editor-at-Large for The Opiate while teaching Creative Writing & Advanced English at several Universities in Paris, France. His new limited edition Artbook of poems & non-poems  « …&? » is only available at The Red wheelbarrow bookstore & at readings such as this one.

Leah Soeiro is a photographer, writer and translator based in Paris. She has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Kent. She is the current President of Paris Lit Up and Editor-in-Chief for the magazine by the same name. She runs a creative writing workshop together with the writers Chris Newens and Clairette Durand-Gasselin. Her poems have been published in Sunbow zine, Feast and Tint Journal. Her poetry-photography collection twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty-one came out with Querencia Press in the fall of 2023. She teaches creative writing and theatre to children. She is currently working on a novel.

Dylan Harris, www.dylanharris.org, has had five poetry collections and
two chapbooks published, and has published five photography artist’s
books. His most recent collection is Flowers of Esch, published by the
Knives Forks and Spoons Press last year. When living in Paris, he
revived Poets Live, and set up corrupt press, www.corruptpress.com.

Jasmine Vegas from NYC was an ex-clothing designer gone chanteuse accompanying herself on accordion in the early 90’s when she travelled to Paris for love but ended up staying for the cheese. Parisians delighted in her offbeat extravagant style as the bar sensation of the late 90’s with her group Jasmine Bande (with an ‘E’) then in the aughts veering electro as Jasmine Vegas. More recently, she’s been delivering ‘old school’ rap or, as her friend Black Sifichi sez, “She got the words, the music, delivery, nuance, the grooves; on stage she got the moves; great bitchy stuff for these Covidy times.”

Bonafide Rojas is a poet & musician. The author of five collections of poetry: Excelsior, Notes On The Return To The Island, Renovatio, When The City Sleeps & Pelo Bueno. An established Nuyorican Poet, he’s appeared on Def Poetry Jam & has been published in numerous anthologies & journals. He was awarded the 2023 Letras Boricuas Fellowship from The Mellon Foundation & is the bandleader/songwriter The Mona Passage who have released two albums: The New Myths & When The City Sleeps. He’s performed at Lincoln Center, The Brooklyn Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, Bowery Ballroom, Philadelphia Museum Of Art, Rotterdam Arts Center, Konvent Zero Barcelona, Spoken Word Paris, Latinale Berlin, Hafen Lesung Hamburg, & Festival De La Palabra Puerto Rico. He’s an avid collector of pop culture & only wears red socks.

Emmet O’Brien is not your generic poet, bursting into the scene in March 2017, Emmet has done more than your average 25 year old. Within the first 3 years alone he released a book, entitled “A Perspective From The Corrupt Mind Of The Youth” and he was the first poet to be published in “District” magazines newsletter, aswell as various videos reaching tens of thousands of views. O’Brien, best known for his video “the North side” is also an event organiser, starting his poetry and music event “Vybrations” in June 2017. it saw incredible success, with amazing artists such as Colm Keegan and Hazel Hogan prefoming at it. The poet extraordinaire then moved on to run a second regular night, called “Phat Cones” which showcased Ireland’s best poets and rappers while educating people on the benefits and positives of medicinal cannabis. In 2018, he opened up for Shane Koyczan. The wordsmith released his second book, entitled “Yup Ouveh” in May 2018, where copies were sold in both Ireland and the UK, aswell as copies being sold in Nigeria. O’Briens third book, entitled “The Illusion Of Perception ” released in March 2019. A play adaptation of the book was launched in March 19, and the event sold out in less than 12 hours. O’Brien has had many festival shows, playing Electric Picinc, Knockanstockan, Body & Soul, and All Together Now. In 2022, O’Brien had his latest poem “Story bud?” muralised onto the walls of temple bar in Dublin city centre. Most recently, O’Brien has played 2 shows in the Gate Theatre, supporting BAC’s beat boxing adaptation of Frankenstein, and in December 2022, he returned from his first European tour, visiting Germany, England, and Paris. 2023 saw the poet teach in prisons around Ireland with a project called “Storytime” and the project was toured around Ireland to show inmates they can be creative.