Poetry Slam, Inc.

President

Oak Park, IL

A teacher of English for 35 years, the last 33 at William Fremd High School in Palatine, Illinois, Henry retired from this position in 2007.  His primary teaching responsibilities included developer and instructor in the District 211 Gifted Program, developer and instructor in District 211 Advanced Placement English course, instructor of Creative Writing and Rhetoric of Cinema.  He was primarily responsible for bringing Poetry Slams in to the high school arena. He developed a plan for implementing poetry slams into normal high school curriculum beginning in 1990; presented information on high school slams at The Illinois Speech and Theater Association and at the National Council Teachers of English Conventions numerous times.

Henry hosted the 1997 regional Rust Belt Poetry Slam in Chicago. He was the co-organizer of the 1999 National Poetry Slam, and the 2003 National Poetry Slam, in Chicago. He served as a non-voting member of the Executive Council of Poetry Slam, Inc 1999 and 2000. Henry was elected to Executive Council of Poetry Slam, Inc. 2001 to present. He served as Treasurer of Poetry Slam, Inc, from 1999 to 2005, and Vice-President from 2005 to 2012.  Henry has served as Tournament Director for several National Poetry Slam events, and for iWPS, in the last decade, and has worked to develop and to serve as the Event Coordinator for each NPS since the EC implemented the position.

Henry is the founding member of Chicago Slam Works with Marc Smith, and has served as President and Treasurer of that group.  He is also a board member and current Vice-President of The Poetry Center of Chicago.

Henry's seat on the EC comes up for re-election in the spring of 2015.

Vice-President

Denver, CO

Suzi Q. Smith lives with her brilliant daughter in Denver, Colorado.  

She writes and performs poetry and music.  Her work has appeared in a number of literary magazines and anthologies, and she is among the highest ranked slam poets in the nation. In addition to her own work competing in poetry slams, Suzi Q. was the host city chair of the Women of the World Poetry Slam in March 2012, and she is the founding slammaster and current co-Slammaster of Slam Nuba.  She once worked on a song with an industrial band from Belgium and the video was banned from youtube.  She is also a founding member of a project called 'The Lady Wu-Tang Clan'.  She's been fortunate in having the opportunity to work with many incredible people over the years in the arenas of poetry and music.  Further, she is a co-coach of Denver's youth poetry slam team, Denver Minor Disturbance.  In addition to her work with PSi, Suzi Q. has long been an activist working with civil rights organizations, victims' rights & advocacy organizations, arts organizations, peace organizations, and many more. 

Currently, Suzi Q. works locally in Denver and she travels throughout the U.S. performing and teaching poetry and music in schools, nightclubs, coffee houses, festivals, detention centers, back yards and living rooms.  She is grateful for the opportunity to serve the slam community as a member of the Executive Council.

Suzi's seat on EC comes up for re-election in spring of 2014.

Secretary

 Salt Lake City, UT

Jesse Parent is a poet, an improviser, a former mixed martial arts fighter, a computer nerd, a husband, a father, and, above all, a human being. According to the results of the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams, he is also the 2nd ranked slam poet in the world.

Jesse entered the world of performance poetry in December 2006 after touring for a few years with the poetry/music/improv show he created called The Hook. He has been on the Salt City Slam poetry teams from 2007-2013 (which included an 8th place finish at the 2011 and 2012 National Poetry Slams), finished 5th at the Ontario International Poetry Slam, was the coach of the 2007, 2008 and 2010 Salt City Slam teams, was the Salt Lake City grand champion in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2013, was the Riverton, UT grand slam champion in 2012, and is the current slammaster of Salt City Slam. He is honored to serve on the executive council for Poetry Slam, Inc., the national body behind the National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, and Women of the World Poetry Slam.

In his professional life, Jesse is a software engineering manager at a company that provides products and services that help the deaf and hearing to communicate. In his other art life, Jesse performs with Laughing Stock Improv at the Off Broadway Theatre on Main St. in Salt Lake City and tours nationally with JoKyR and Jesster . In his personal life, he has a very tolerant wife and three adorable kids.

Jesse's seat on EC comes up for re-election in spring of 2014.

Treasurer

Charlotte, NC

Inkera Oshun is a lover of poetry, good people, warm spirits and rain showers. She finds solace in volunteering and helping others.

She is currently the Artistic director and number one fan for SlamCharlotte, the slam team in Charlotte NC. She doesn't consider herself a poet but finds that writing is the only thing in life that frees her soul and allows her spirit to soar.

Inkera's love affair with PSI started in 2004 at the first iWPS. She has volunteered at a PSI event every year since then. Inkera served as co-organizer for iWPS 2006, 2008, & 2010 and the Southern Fried Regional Poetry Slam in 2005. She is currently the co-organizer for NPS 2012.

Inkera is honored to be a part of PSI, the EC, and the poetry community.

Inkera's seat on EC comes up for re-election in spring of 2015.

Trustee 

New York City, NY

The Cave Canem Alumnae & Poets House Fellow is the author of several books including Swag & Dear Twitter:Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & listed as About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics. Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada's The Word and UK's MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Muzzle, Union Station, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary Brown Girl Love and Up The Staircase. She is an Urban Word NYC mentor, as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, a small press for performance artists and owns PoetCD.Com, an on-line marketing and distribution company for poets.

Mahogany is currently the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program Director and curator of their world famous Friday Night Slam.

Mahogany's seat on EC comes up for re-election in spring of 2015.

Trustee

Silver City, NM

Sam Castello is known to many people by many titles: father, husband, brother, son, writer, actor, poet and sometimes space cowboy. He has also been accused of being the co-founder and current Slammaster of Silver City Poetry Bread. Sam has fostered the corruption of hundreds of young minds by developing and sustaining a vibrant youth poetry scene in Silver City mostly made up of teenagers who think Space Cowboy refers to Lady Gaga's DJ, which is just fine with him, as long as they are honest with their words and courageous with their voices. 

When not engaged in poetry, Sam works as the Executive Director of The Wellness Coalition, a regional nonprofit corporation headquartered in Silver City whose mission is to develop and sustain the vitality of the people of southwest New Mexico and the community organizations that serve them.The Wellness Coalition implements positive youth development programs and also works as a capacity building organization for other nonprofits. It is also one of the largest AmeriCorps programs in the state of New Mexico with around 100 corpsmembers serving in eight counties each year.  

 Sam's seat on EC comes up for re-election in spring of 2014.

Trustee

Atlanta, GA

Karen is a decade-plus slam ma'am, poet, fanatic, host, and organizer in the Atlanta area. She curated events twice for The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, Ladyfest South and Estrofest’s  Seen + Heard Festival and served on the board of directors for the first Rock Camp For Girls’ (ATL). She is a performer, host, organizer and coach for Art Amok/Slam Amok! and a partner with the nation’s oldest feminist bookstore, Charis Books & More in running Cliterati. She’s taken seven or more teams to compete nationally with 75 other teams at the annual National Poetry Slam. She’s a competing poet, volunteer and emcee for the Individual World Poetry Slam and Women of the World Poetry Slam. By day she works behind the book spines at Emory University’s General Library.

Karen's seat on EC comes up for re-election in spring of 2015.