Description
A “rich hybrid of memoir and history” (The New Yorker) of the literary art form that has transformed the cultural landscape, by one of its influential practitioners, an award-winning poet, professor, and slam champion
“Bennett…transport[s] us back to the city blocks, bars, cafes and stages these artists traversed and inhabited…an instructive text for young poets, artists or creative entrepreneurs trying to find a way to carve out a space for themselves…Shines with a refreshing dynamism.” —The New York Times
In 2009, when he was twenty years old, Joshua Bennett was invited to perform a spoken word poem for the Obamas, at the same White House Poetry Jam where Lin-Manuel Miranda declaimed the opening bars of a work-in-progress that would soon revolutionize American theater. That meeting is but one among many in the trajectory of Bennett's young life, as he rode the cresting wav