A double feature this Monday at SpokenWord. As well as the great spoken word poet Bonafide Rojas, we are happy to welcome James Baldwin’s niece and nephew to SpokenWord on 8th April, where they will read from Baldwin’s ‘Little Man, Little Man’, written by Baldwin for Tejan when he was little. A big thanks to Camille Rich of The Link for arranging this!
Here’s some words about the book from Baldwin himself.
Biographies:
Tejan Karefa is a writer, photographer and media artist living and working in Paris since 2008, while making jumps from Washington D.C. He has captured street images in D.C., Paris, New York City, Bahia, Brazil and Southern Morocco. Some of these photos appeared in his debut photo exhibit entitled ‘Frontieres’. Tejan has traversed the Paris HIPHOP and Jazz performance scene as a guest vocalist with Paris-based artists and bands including David Linx, Ben L’Oncle Soul, Panam Panic, JDQ (Julien Daian Quintet) and the Urban Groove Unit. Tejan’s foreword opens the newly re-released ‘Little Man, Little Man’ by James Baldwin, originally published in 1977. He has participated on panel discussions and readings in New York and Paris to give voice to the “book of code” he cherished as a childhood gift from ‘Uncle Jimmy’.
Aisha Karefa-Smart is an author, educator and public speaker. Her childhood home in New York City was a congregation space for African-American writers, artists and musicians. Her uncle, the late James Baldwin, often returned home from the South of France to New York where he hosted all night “jam sessions” with literary greats such as Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. Influenced by her exposure to such artistic, and cultural, and political discourse, she chose to study and perform as a member of Dr. Glory Van Scott’s Children’s Theater, The Harlem Theater Company and The Falcons Dance Troupe in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Aisha has presented and facilitated panel discussions examining the work of her late uncle and his re-emergence into the nation’s political and racial discourse.
Thanks to The Red Wheelbarrow bookshop who are bringing copies of ‘Little Man, Little Man’ to sell at the event.
Bonafide Rojas is the author of four collections of poetry: Notes On The Return To The Island (2017), Renovatio (2014), When The City Sleeps (2012) & Pelo Bueno (2004). He’s appeared on Def Poetry Jam & has been published in numerous anthologies & journals. He’s in the band The Mona Passage & has performed at: Lincoln Center, The Brooklyn Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, Bowery Ballroom, The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Rotterdam Arts Center, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Latinale Berlin, Festival Kerouac Vigo & Festival De La Palabra. He currently lives in New York City.
Chris Ames has lived in France for 27 years, but the past 10 have been a second youth due to divorce, homelessness, and travel to the four corners of the earth. He has published six books of short stories and poetry, in Japan, Poland and France, and in 2017 won a nonfiction prize in America for “An American (homeless) in Paris,” which is available online. This month will see publication of a bilingual book of prose-poetry entitled “Exile: The Pleasure is Ours” concerning his travels in Russia, and on May 7th will be the guest author at the American Library in Paris, to talk about his book on homelessness and its unforeseen benefits. Please welcome Chris back to Paris. He is arriving April 1st from winter in Myanmar.
Robert Isaf is an award-winning poet and journalist from Atlanta. He has performed across Europe and the United States, and has recently relocated to East Germany, where he is working with the medieval Aramaic poetry of Gregory Barhebraeus and on a collection of essays concerning identity and memory off the beaten path. This is his first time performing in Paris.
Dylan Harris, 
Rufo Quintavalle was born in London in 1978, studied at Oxford and the University of Iowa and has lived in Paris for the last fifteen years. He is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent of which, hhereenow, is published by corrupt press in Luxembourg. A new and selected poems will be published by Ravenna Press in Washington State later this year. He has taught creative writing at NYU Paris and for many years ran the reading series, Poets Live. He is also an environmentalist and is involved in a large scale reforestation project in the Brazilian Amazon. Poems are on 
Jamika Ajalon is a prolific author and inter-disciplinary artist who works with different mediums independently, but also in multiple fusions- incorporating written and spoken text, sound/music, and visuals. Her poems, stories and essays have been published in various digital and hard copy publications internationally. She currently writes a regular column for Itchy Silk magazine “queer plume: the fugitive diaries”, guest lecturer , (including Vienna Arts Academy, and American University of Paris), vocalist, writer musician, (Zenzile/Jamika & the Argonauts). She has performed her audio visual anti lectures / sonic slam and exhibited across the globe (including Rennes Biennale of contemporary art,(2018), DISTURBANCE expo Kunsthalle Leipzig,(2017), Beton Salon, Paris (2017). She has a BA Film/Video, MA Communications in Culture and Society, Goldsmiths University, London.
We are glad to announce that Nick Calderbank and Florent Simon will perform Harold Pinter’s 2-man play Victoria Station this coming Monday 25th Feb at SpokenWord.
Florent Simon trained at the Cours Jean-Laurent Cochet in Paris and Estudio 3 in Madrid. He directed and acted in various university productions while studying in London and is now back in Paris, ready to make the most of his time here. Currently he is exploring new theatrical forms and experiences.
Antonia
Pansy Maurer-Alvarez was born in Puerto Rico, grew up in Pennsylvania and did her literary studies at universities in the US, Switzerland and Spain. She emigrated from the US to Switzerland in 1973 and moved to Paris in 1990. Active in the Parisian poetry scene, she was a long time student of Alice Notley, and, for a few years, curated the Poets Live reading series. Her latest collections of poetry are ORANGES IN JANUARY (Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2016) and IN A FORM OF SUSPENSION (corrupt press, 2014) and she has 4 previous collections. She is a contributing editor to the British magazine, Tears in the Fence and the American magazine, Osiris. She lives in Strasbourg, writes and goes to lots of concerts and the theater. She dreams of buying a harp.
SpokenWord Paris 