Drawl | Southern Spoken Word Poetry

Coming from New Orleans, Tank and the Bangas are surrounded by plenty of grand musical traditions. And the five-piece group has a rare knack for combining various musical styles—fiery soul, deft hip-hop, deep-groove R&B and subtle jazz—into one dazzling, cohesive whole that evokes the scope of New Orleans music while retaining a distinctive feel all its own.

“It’s music that can’t really be put in a box,” says singer and poet Ta...

Jonathan Samuel Eddie is a spoken word comedian hailing from Columbus, GA. This alumnus of Georgia Southern University represented the city of Atlanta at the National Poetry Slam competition as a member of the 2012 and 2014 Art Amok Poetry Slam Teams. He was also the 2012 and 2014 Grand Slam Champion at Art Amok. Jonathan was also a member of the 2015 Java Monkey Slam Team (Atlanta), ranking among the top 20 slam teams in the natio...

Glori B is the stage name of Austin poet Gloria C. Adams. Adams moved frequently as a child, living in Louisiana, Colorado, Texas, and Florida, but for more than half of her life she has lived in or near Austin, TX. She considers Austin her home town.

Currently, Adams lives in Leander and works as a 7th grade English and ESL teacher at a middle school in Austin. She graduated with a degree in English Language Arts Education from St....

Neil Hilborn, a slam poet from Houston, TX, is the most-viewed slam poet on YouTube and his poem, "OCD" is Button Poetry's top viewed video. His poems often detail personal experiences and battles with mental illness or other disorders. He is best known for his poem "OCD", which has garnered critical acclaim online with 75 million views. Hilborn regularly tours to perform his poetry at colleges and other venues.

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Sherrie Zantea (Candy) has been writing and performing poetry for over 20 years. Candy made the 2007 Dallas Poetry Slam Team, and to date has been on 10 teams, the first woman to coach 6 and she is the current Executive Director of the Dallas Poetry Slam Organization.

Candy is a teaching artist and teaches creative writing in the DFW School Districts. She recently created a teaching artist program for Dallas Poetry Slam and works fo...

A Scribe Called Quess? is a poet, educator, actor, playwright, and activist in that order. He is a 2-time national slam poetry championship title winner and founding member of Team SNO (Slam New Orleans), New Orleans’ three-time national champion slam poetry team. His accomplishments with Team SNO have earned him honors from the Mayor of New Orleans as well as from City Council. He is a two-time Slam New Orleans Semi-Finals Slam wi...

Matthew “Cuban” Hernandez is an international poet, teaching artist and Slam (poetry) coach from Jacksonville, Florida. Hernandez founded Shattered Thought, a youth poetry slam and mentoring organization that eventually contracted with the Duval County Juvenile Court Program to provide writing and performance workshops. He has since been invited to facilitate writing and performance workshops in schools and juvenile detention cente...

Bill Moran is a third-year MFA poetry candidate at Louisiana State University and a former medic. He was the 2012 & 2013 Austin Poetry Slam Champion; has performed and taught poetry throughout the US, Australia, and Southeast Asia; and served as president of Mic Check, a non-profit poetry organization in Brazos County, Texas. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Button Poetry (video), Phoebe, Bird's Thumb, Next Left P...

More than a poet, more than a singer, more than an emcee--it's not just what she says, it's how she says it. Emerging from the musical womb that is New Orleans, artist and visionary Sunni Patterson combines the heritage and tradition of her Native town with an enlightened modern world view to create music and poetry that is timeless in its groove.

Sunni Patterson has established herself has an internationally known artist an...