Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam

Christopher Johnson
The “Lizard King” and Famecast Spoken Word Champion
“The Greatest Love Poem Ever Written“

Rajdulari
Local Musician and Poet and Lead Singer of Zili Misic
“My Tree”

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– Poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator, and educator Regie Gibson has performed, taught, and lectured at schools, universities, theaters and various other venues on two continents and in seven countries. Most recently in Havana Cuba. Regie and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film love jones, based largely on events in his life. The poem entitled “Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina)” appears on the movie soundtrack and is performed by the film’s star, Larenz Tate. Regie performed “Hey Nappyhead” in the film with world-renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar, composer of the score for the musical The Lion King. Regie has performed at: The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago Cultural Center, Elgin Symphony Orchestra Hall with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall with the members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Day of Art Festival, Chicago1s Steppenwolf Theater1s award-winning Traffic Series with David Amram (Composed music & collaborated with Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg.),Harvard Universities Longfellow Hall for the Cambridge Poetry Festival, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH.Regie has personally worked with: Gwendolyn Brooks (Poet Laureate of Illinois & Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry.), The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Roy Ayers, Fareed Haque, Kurt Vonnegut, David Amram (Composed music & collaborated with Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg.), Harold Levi, The Monks of the Drepong Gamong Monastery, members of the world famous AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), Mos Def (Hip Hop artist), David Murray (Saxophonist with Miles Davis.), Sterling Plumpp (Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. & an author), Marc Smith (creator of the international (Poetry Slam phenomenon), Patricia Smith (3 time individual National Poetry Slam champ, columnist & author.), Reg E. Gaines (Writer of 3Bring On The Noise, Bring On The Funk2 with Savion Glover.), and many other artist in musical genres including World, Celtic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Funk, Blues, Salsa, Andelusian, East Indian, House, and European Classical.Regie has taught, lectured and facilitated workshops for: the Cambridge Poetry Festival at Harvard University, the Poetry Center of the Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Black Writers Guild, Inside Out of Detroit, MI, University of Chicago Lab School, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University, National Louis University, Washtenaw State College, Youth Speaks of San Francisco, CA, University Without Walls of San Antonio, TX, as a Chernin Center for the Arts Community Writers Fellow, a writer in residence at the Effi O. Ellis Center sponsored through National Louis University, and for public schools systems throughout the States of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, California, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. Regie is the 1998 National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, was selected one of Chicago Tribune’s Artist of the Year for Excellence (1998) for his poetry, will co-judge the Chicago Sun-Times 2001 Poetry Competition with Marc Smith (Creator of the international (Poetry Slam phenomenon.) and Mark Strand (University of Chicago professor & 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry), and is regularly featured on National Public Radio.Regie has toured with the Chicago Mask Ensemble, performing dramatic and poetic adaptations of common myths from around the world. Co-produced the play “The Mystery of Fire Bread” with Frau Marianne Buchwald, while performing in Europe with the Sharnier Theater in the cities of Hanover, Frankfurt, Berlin, and the Literature Haus in Hamburg, Germany. Performed at the Night of Sacred Music in Chicago. His original works of poetry have been dramatized and scored by classical flautist and professor Janet Misurell Mitchell and produced and directed by Eric Rosen for the Steppenwolf Theater’s Words on Fire production.In 1999 Regie performed for the award-winning Traffic Series at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater where Regie adapted the work of Kurt Vonnegut. Mr. Vonnegut was in attendance, and raved about the eloquence with which his work was rendered. “When you perform, you are supersonic and in the stratosphere where you can see the Earth really as a ball, moist, blue-green. You sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets left out.” — Kurt VonnegutIn 1999 Regie founded the Church of The Funky Word, a literary and musical arts ensemble utilizing ancient, contemporary and original literary text combined with world music and rituals from various world cultures.Regie is widely published in anthologies, magazines and journals, such as Power Lines, An Anthology of Poetry along with three Pulitzer-Prize winning poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Yosef Komunyakaa, and Lisel Mueller, his first full-length book of poetry Storms Beneath The Skin (EM Press) was released in 2001. www.em-press.comListen to Regie – Right Now

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– Tom Daley is a member of the faculty of the Online School of Poetry and serves on the tutorial faculty of Walnut Hill School for the Arts. He teaches poetry writing at the Boston Center for Adult Education in Boston, Massachusetts and poetry and memoir writing at Lexington (MA) Community Education. He has been a guest instructor in ekphrastic writing at Brown University and in poetry writing and performance at Stonehill College and SUNY Cobleskill. He has produced two gala evenings of performance poetry, “The Musician and the Muse” (2004) at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center and “The Poetry Vaudeville Show” (2008) at the Boston Center for Adult Education.Tom Daley’s poetry is forthcoming or has been published in numerous journals, including Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, Vox, Diagram, 32 Poems, Salamander, Archipelago, Perihelion, Poetry Ireland Review, Asheville Poetry Review, and Hacks: The Grub Street Anthology. His manuscript, Shim, was a finalist for the Emily Dickinson First Book Prize offered by The Poetry Foundation and the Brittingham and Pollak Poetry Prizes offered by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His poetry was nominated for inclusion in the anthology, The Best New Poets 2007. He graduated with highest honors in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, where he won the Charles and Fanny Fay Wood Academy of American Poets Prize.

Listen to Tom – Great Falls

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– Anaiis Nai can best be described as passionate, an outspoken and tenacious native of Roxbury, MA, Anaiis poetry is honest sharing experiences of domestic violence, motherhood, and the reality of teaching our children in the United States; however, to limit her realm of truth to stateside would truly be a faux pas. In addition to being a regular and host of the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA Anaiis has traveled the world performing and speaking from university to club to Union Square, recently adding to her collective travels and performances: Tangiers, Casablanca, and Fes, Morocco; her poetry can be described as honest, introspective, and soul inspiring. brings to the fore what hurts us most by sharing herself one syllable at a time. When asked why she writes she has this to say: “I write because I have no where else to put my truth, no one I can be completely free with; paper has never betrayed me, it remains my most trusted friend.”

Anaiis has been featured on both page and stage, recently capturing the attention of the Boston Globe with the release of her book “Portraits” and featuring on local television program “Cambridge Nights”. But her history within the word delves beyond her roots in the New England area, having founded the first poetry slam in Jacksonville, Fl to slamming the stages of the New York Film Academy, and the world Famous Nuyorican Poets Café. Anaiis has proven herself to be a force within the evolution of words. Currently her projects include a theatrical adaptation of the photographic series “Surviving Torture” the atrocities of Sierre Leone and Liberia by Pulitzer winning photographer John Kaplan; as well as the debut of her first novel “Through My Daughters Eyes”. Her goal? Despite her many accomplishments and various projects Anaiis remains the humble yet consummate fan of words; in an interview during a benefit for the NOWAC (New Orleans Women Artists Collective) Anaiis had this to say, “I just want to reach that one in the back of the room who needed to know someone else has been there too… healing is like recovering from an addiction; you have to take it one day at a time

Listen to Anaiis – School Teacher

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– Smartass, sweetheart, performing and visual artist, burlesque dancer, Agent Provocateur. Word Crafter. Stage Name: Blossom Blue. Currently learning Brazilian Portuguese and writing a fantastical screenplay to star Bill Murray. Longing to study with the Himalayan Masters and indigenous Shamans.

Impromptu Mistress of Fire Ceremonies. Have been known to sing What’s New Pussycat upon demand and show off my special comehitherboy dance. I also speak to trees, burn sage, and design spiritual altars out in the urban landscape. Have a strange sexual attraction to Cartman impersonators, a quirky endearing need to touch and caress everything including your body, a vast collection of flavored lip gloss, and I love to smell the pages inside of books. And I have really pretty hair, and that means something.

Listen Trish – Queen of the Damned

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– Michael “Warrior” Bonds has performed his unique brand of spoken word actionist poetry and co-facilitated workshops nationally. he won international acclaim in Europe, performing and facilitating workshops at the Air Lift Project in Zurich Switzerland in 2005. He also recorded a new album in Geneva Switzerland produced by DJ Goo for Synchrovision Records featuring Bryonn Bain co-founder of the Blackout Arts Collective.

His CD “Gunz, Poems & Rosez” is on sale in Zurich at 6 Pack Records, Crazy Beat and other fine stores. His presence and poetry has been felt as far away as the UK London and Africa.

He is a member of the Black Scribes Society, Poetry Joint . Com and the Blackout Arts Collective which is an affiliate of the New York Foundation of the Arts.

His words will grab you and respectfully hold the collective attention hostage making certain you feel his experience, strength and hope.

The legendary Brian Jackson
told the Warrior:

“do the damn thing, brotha. you’ve got the gift. bless em! “

Voted both “Boston Community Warrior” and “Poet Warrior” of Hartford Connecticut in 2003.

In February 2005 the Warrior was a featured poet on Def Poetry Jam’s website www.defpoetryjam.com., the Def Poetry Jam co-founder Bruce George has respectfully embraced the Warrior G.R.I.O.T. as being

“a muckraker without trepidation.”

Monti Smith producer of the Red Bull Word Clash said when asked about the Warrior:

“lets just hope he breeds and fast!”

The Warrior has performed in front of and in shows that included the likes of:
Gospel great Mrs. Tramaine Hawkins,
Dr. Bobby Jones at the Urban Impact Summit,
Dead Prez, Saul Williams,
Wise Intelligent (formally of Poor Righteous Teachers),
Pharaohe Monche, Madusa,
Chico Debarge,
hip hop legends Kurtis Blow and Whoodini just to name a few.

He has made poetic contributions to:

University of Pennsylvania (Phila) 2008 African American Ball, UMass Boston Feb, 2008 Martin Luther King International Chapel, Morehouse College (Atl Ga.) 2007 Morehouse College Jazzman Cafe Poetry Night “Mics of the Roundtable” @ the Whitaker Center, (Harrisburg PA.) 2007 “From Prison to Page” @ the Kennedy Center (Washington DC) 2007 Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby academic Center (Katrina Survivors Event) Atl Ga. The Finding Our Folks Tour for Hurricane Katrina Survivors (Atlanta Ga. and Mobile Alabama) 2006,
Chicago Art Institute, Ill. 2005 Lyrics On Lockdown Tour 2005 (Boston, NY, Conn, DC, New Orleans)
NAACP National Convention 2003 with the BLACKOUT Arts Collective (Miami Fla.),
Participate Conference 2004 (Washington DC),
Beats for Peace tour Summerville Theater (Massachusetts),
ACLU College tour Saunders Theater at Harvard University,
ACORN Friends of the People Banquet at the Omni Parker House (Boston),
Community Gems at University of Massachusetts Boston,
National Black Agenda Convention 2004 opening day host (Boston),
The U.S. Postal Service Langston Hughes Stamp unveiling, Black August South 2003 (New Orleans)

He Has Facilitated work shops on:

the Prison Industrial Complex, Preventing Youth Violence and Conflict Resolution.
After 8 years spent in the 21st Century indentured servitude including 3 consecutive
years 23 hour solitary confinement, the Warrior G.R.I.O.T. has made good on a personal commitment to empower others.

Listen to Michael – My Mission

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– Joyce Cunha, aka SlamMama, is the co-SlamMaster with Jeff Robinson of the Lizard Lounge Poetry Slam. When she’s not encouraging young poetic voices, she’s teaching children with learning disabilities as a 5th grade Resource Room teacher in a Boston Public School in Dorchester.

Listen to Joyce Cunha – Slam Mama Love Poem

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– Eric Darby was a finalist at the 2005 National Poetry Slam and has been the featured performer at poetry and storytelling venues across the U.S. and Canada. A past host of the Detroit and Lizard Lounge poetry slams, he is currently a Creative Writing Fellow at Syracuse University.

Listen to Eric – Third Shift Lullaby

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