SpokenWord Paris

Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. Television credits include 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Tedx Talks, NPR’s Snap Judgement & MTV’s Free Your Mind. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He has been on faculty at Kundiman, Banff Arts Center and NYU Asian Pacific Studies Artist in Residence. Mr. Cabico received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching youth at Bellevue Hospital. The Kenyon Review named RegieCabico the “Lady Gaga of Poetry” and has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and through Howard Zinn’s Portraits Project at NYU, has performed with Stanley Tucci, Jesse Eisenberg & Lupe Fiasco. He is publisher of Capturing Fire Press and producer of Capturing Fire Slam in Washington, DC.

Malik Ameer Crumpler is a poet, rapper, composer, music producer & editor that’s released several albums, glitch art films, five poetry books & one book of raps. He’s a poetry editor/ co-host with Paris Lit Up,  editor-at-large of The Opiate & co-founder of Those That This. Malik has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from L.I.U. Brooklyn. He is also the M.C. for Hip Hop group, Madison Washington on Def Pressé. Beneath The Underground: Collected Raps 2000- 2018 is Malik’s most recent book & ((((FACTS))))) is Madison Washington’s album. http://malikameer.com/

Mary McColley is a writer and poet from Maine, currently studying history and languages in Paris. She studies in corners of various museums and wanders the streets at odd hours, as well as drawing and writing copiously. She worked at a lobster company in Maine and deeply loves the ocean. Mary is fascinated by languages and migrations. Find more of her work at https://troislapins.weebly.com/.

Lisa Ducasse is a spoken word artist, singer and songwriter from Mauritius now living in Paris. She released her first poetry collection, Midnight Sunburn, in April 2017, and her first EP, Louvoie, in September 2018. She writes in French and in English, her two native languages, and her work mostly stems from and builds around the – sometimes lived, sometimes imagined – life of a traveler and the various homes one finds through encounters, moments, and in places all around the world. Her songs recently caught the attention of French singer Zazie, for whom she opened at the Olympia in November 2019. Her second poetry collection, called House of Sometimes, is scheduled to be released in the first half of 2020.

photo credit–Frederick Petit

                  Richard Earls writes and performs poetry and songs on the UK and Paris spoken word circuit on subjects as diverse as love, war, family, death and desperation on the dance floor. A musician and songwriter for four decades, he was involved in the mid-80s UK jazz/pop scene (CBS LP Compilation, Get Wise and Virgin/Paladin release Pull Me UP). Following his conspicuous lack of success as a pop star, he moved to France to bring up his family with his wife, Deby. Years later, a chance encounter with a homeless GI, begging on Market Street, San Francisco provided what the French call a ‘déclic’ which resulted in a flood of poems and songs which would become his Older Wiser Harder collection. Richard is now a regular at venues such as The Poetry Cafe, Talking Rhythm, Rags and Tatters, Paris Lit Up, Spoken Word Paris, Rhyme and Reason, Listen Softly London and 1000 Monkeys. At Spoken Word Paris in January his set will include a reprise of his first epic poem, Mairead Aigneis, 21st Century Warrior Queen, which was received so warmly at Write Up! Speak Up! at the Wells Festival of Literature in October. He will also be performing work from his slim volume of poems, The Bonfire.

I have been writing poems since I was nine years old, starting with this first verse “The moon is so beautiful that, sometimes, we have conversations“. (One might say, I am an) Adept of raw, automatic writing and ever flirting with the immortal flowers of surrealism. The theater was my first experience onstage, slam my first playing field. I participated in several major national slams, whereupon… music very quickly came to claim me. I have been performing on stage since 2007 –whether alone or accompanied by musicians, performers, and acrobats. As I arrived in Paris, I wondered how to survive in a city so violent. Then, I met a girl at one of the slam venues who said this about me:   ”Her response to concrete? words of concrete; her echo to horns? horns that honked back; her portrait of the mist? a gaseous gaze from behind misty glasses. I held back a dam of tears listening…Lurking behind those meanings were other meanings; behind those knives, other knives; by virtue of that field of flowers before us, a whole new field of flowers began sprouting in our hearts.” Monday evenings at the Downtown Café, helped me to better support my new life in France.

YAS Poète performeuse

Addison Bale is an artist from New York. His chapbook, SNAKESKINS, was published by Irrelevant Press in 2017. He has also published poems with Indolent Books Press, Wedgie Magazine in Paris, and the Pomeroy Poets Anthology. Most recently he completed a residency in poetry and art education in Bolivia and will be pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in 2020. Outside of poetry, Addison works as a painter in Brooklyn.

Bill Moran is a performance poet and former medic from Houston, TX.  He is a two-time Austin Poetry Slam Champion, and has an MFA Poetry degree from Louisiana State University. He has toured regularly since 2011, performing and teaching throughout the UK, Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, and the US. His work has been featured on Button Poetry (video), University of Hell Press, Alien Mouth, Pressure Gauge Press, and Phoebe. He currently lives and works in Houston as a teaching artist for Writers in the Schools, and his solo debut book ‘Oh God Get Out Get Out is now available through Write Bloody Publishing.

Daniel Wilner is a degenerate and a gentleman. Known as Uncle Lush he comprises one half of the Brooklyn based rap group Brotherz Grimm and has performed at NYC open mikes like the Nuyorican, Art of Lyrics, and End of the Weak, as well as Paris Lit Up. He is a slang aficionado, ill drunken master of freestyling, and overall pretty nice guy. His new solo project Lush Life will be released in 2020.