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Marc Kelly Smith Poetry Slam Founder

MARC KELLY SMITH (SO WHAT!) / Slampapi
the founder/creator of the Poetry Slam Movement

Marc Kelly Smith is best known for bringing to the worldwide poetry community a new style of poetic presentation that has spawned one of the most important social/literary arts movements of our time. As stated in the PBS television series, The United States of Poetry, a strand of new poetry began at Chicago's Green Mill Tavern in 1987 when Marc Smith found a home for the Poetry Slam. Since then, performance poetry has spread throughout the country and across the globe to hundreds of cities, universities, high schools, festivals, and cultural centers. Each year, teams from American and European cities compete in National Poetry Slams, extravagant homespun festivals blending thousands of poetic voices. The Slam has taken root and is flourishing in Australia, Germany, UK, Canada, Switzerland, France, Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Madagascar, Singapore, and even at the South Pole.

Born on the southeast side of Chicago, Smith's innate sense of rhythm and unflinching realism has made him one of the country's most compelling performers. Full of grit, his performances break poetic boundaries giving audiences an acute vision of what poetry is and what it can be. Smith has performed at The Smithsonian Institute, The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary, the Asheville Poetry Festival (North Carolina), 1st Night Annapolis (Maryland), The Innovator's Festival (Washington, DC), the Kennedy Center, Galway's Cruit Festival, Denmark's Roskilde Festival, Ausburg's ABC Brecht Festival, and the Queensland Poetry Fest in Australia. He has been featured on CNN, 60 Minutes, National Public Radio's Whadda Ya Know, ARTbeat Chicago,The Ophra Winfrey Show, Wild Chicago, WGN Chicago's Very Own, Chicago Slices and has been a many time member of NewCity's Lit 50, a listing of the top fifty movers and shakers in Chicago literature.