Slam Team Bios

Biography: Natasha “T.Miller” Miller



Natasha Miller is the voice of wounds exposed, and the healing balm of poetry applied to the human spirit. The passionate 25 year-old Detroit, MI native is a writer, performance poet, dedicated activist, actress and an aspiring motivational speaker. Since her debut, just over three years ago, Natasha has proven to be a poetical powerhouse. After one year on the performance circuit, in 2007, she was crowned Detroit Poetry Slam team’s Grand Slam Champion, and has been a member of three National Poetry Slam teams. She has also been a Women of The World Poetry Slam finalist two years in a row, ranking as the third female slam poet in the world in 2008. Natasha continued her impressive record by leading and coaching her team to championship at the 2010 Midwest Rustbelt Poetry Slam, ranking #2 in the competition.
Natasha has awed audiences across the country at universities, festivals and numerous venues including the famous Nuyorican Poets Café in New York, Vancouver Poetry slam, Girl Fest Hawaii and Chicago’s Green Mill. She has premiered on stages with celebrity actors and comedians Oscar award winning Mo’nique, Star of the movie “Paper Hearts” Charlyne Yi, Brandon T. Jackson, actor Malcolm Jamal Warner, legendary poet Jessica Care Moore, hip-hop artist Talib Kweli, and many more. Mo’Nique, impressed, personally invited Natasha to feature on her radio show. In 2010, she starred in a national commercial campaign for Sprite.. In the same year, she released her solo spoken word album “Poetry for Change,” and featured in the stage play “The Revolution’s In The Ladies Room” produced by Jessica care Moore.
Natasha is currently ranked as the number 5 female slam poet in the world, She now produces the popular “Its Not About You Poetry Slam Series.” Recently she started her own publishing company “All I Wanna Say Publishing” and published her first book of quotes “Dreams Of A Beginner.” She is currently finishing her memoir titled “Rape, Suicide, God, and Poetry.” Fueled by her own mistakes, faith, and unapologetic truth, Natasha, uses words to enlighten, create equality, imbue life, and most importantly spread love and peace in the tradition of great leaders before her.



Biography: Omari “King Wise” Barksdale



Omari "King Wise" Barksdale (Detroit's Echoverse Grand Slam Champion) is a Detroit based poet and founder of Uhuru Cipher Artists Management. Since 2001, he has held the attention of audiences across the country including representing Detroit, MI as a member of the last 6 Detroit Slam teams and the 2007 Rust Belt Championship Slam Team. As an artist, he has performed at over 50 Universities/colleges nationwide and co-founded the lecture group "Hip-Poe-Tics", Omari has also been privileged to share the stage with many great leaders and artists including but not limited to The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr., Erykah Badu, Common, Talib Kweli, The Last Poets, Afeni Shakur, Chuck D, Krs-One, Professor Griff, Dead Prez, Amiri Baraka, X-Clan, and many more.

As a solo artist and as a member of Hip-Poe-Tics Omari has been a presenter at the National Conference On Race and Ethnicity (N.C.O.R.E) which is a conference geared towards the topic of diversity in higher education and beyond.

As an activist, Omari has been involved in a multitude of activities and programs in which he has been called upon to provide help as a speaker, poet, ally or providing assistance with his hands. Since becoming active he has worked in the capacity of “Legislative Assistant” for the Detroit City Council and waged a strong campaign for State office and has extended his hand to work with many community organizations and governing bodies both locally and across state lines.



Biography: Deonte Osayande



Deonte Osayande is one of the 2010/2011 Presidential Ambassadors for the University of Detroit Mercy. In 2010 he was runner up in the Dudley Randall Poetry Contest and in the Howling Wolf Chapbook Contest. He finished in third place at the Define Your Legend poetry contest at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. During 2011 he finished third in the Dudley Randall Poetry Competition to again be a top finalist and second in Detroit Mercy’s Women and Gender Studies creative writing competition. In this year’s Howling Wolf Chapbook Contest he was a co-winner of the competition alongside Allison Bohn and will have a book co-written by the two published by the university in the near future. He is a member of the 2011 Detroit Neo Minds Poetry Slam Team that competed at the Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam. He has read at the University of Toledo, University of Detroit Mercy, University of Michigan Dearborn and Michigan State University. He has been a featured reader at the African World Festival, Scarab Club and Symposium for the Society of the Study of Midwestern Literature to name a few places. His poetry appears on online quarterlies such as Troubadour21 and Renaissance City, Detroit Mercy's literary magazines [sic] 16, [sic] 17 and [sic] 18 and the upcoming 31st issue of Bredcrumb Scabs magazine. He released a self published chapbook entitled Quills of Fire in 2010. He is a graduate of the Broadside Press Institute of Cultural Studies and a former intern instructor with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute of Self Development. He is currently working on a Bachlor's degree in Elementary Education with a focus in Mathematics and English at the University of Detroit Mercy that he will be completing in the fall.



Biography: Gabriel Israel Green


Gabe is an up and coming performance poet in the Detroit Poetry Community. Although he's only been performing for about a year and a half, he's already published two books of poetry. Gabe aspires to become a better artist at his craft, and is also attnending college in hopes of becoming a teacher.



Biography: Christopher "UNtitled" Jones

Christopher had started writing and performing in Oct 2009. He was a member of Detroit's 2011 Midwest Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam Team. He attended the University of Detroit Mercy for Engineering between the years of 98-01 before leaving to Houston, Texas. Now that he's returned home he has become a great activist as well as writer. He teaches poetry as a volunteer at Osborn, Central, and Detroit School of Arts High Schools. He encourages youth to empower themselves through the word. He was also the manager opperating the Detroit venue, The Sweet Epiphany from July 2010 to June this year.

Freewrite

I listen to her heartbeat
to discover what music
is actually like. The sound
of it is a marble rattling
between the lobes of my brain,
pulsating purity into them.

An ear pressed to her chest
it like a message in a bottle
from heaven. I've been told
there are many fish in the sea
but see she is a mermaid.

I plucked out my own eyes
out of the desire of not seeing
anything after I had bore
witness to her beauty.
The gouged pupil
has felt tricked by lesser imitations
of her by those envious with jealousy.

People of the Water live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmbxZ1G8FCI

This Week

Tomorrow is the Grand Slam Finals for the Detroit National Poetry Slam Team. The event is at Sweet Epiphany Detroit, on West Outer Drive by Final cuts barber shop and it costs 15 at the door, 10 in advance. Come out and support me and some of the city's finest poets as we vie for the 5 spots to represent the city in Boston this August.

Also this week I will be amongst poets Allison Bohn, Brandon Clark, and Alex Jones at the symposium for the society of the study of midwestern literature. Our reading will be early friday, the event is at Michigan State University and further details are on the symposiums website below. Hope to see you there.

http://www.ssml.org/

Next Project

The school year has ended and the result of the last poetry contest, the Howling Wolf Chapbook Contest, has come in. Poets Allison Bohn and Deonte Osayande, both very talented in their own respects and varying styles have resulted in a tie. Instead of any squabbling and pettiness the university staff and both writers have decided to come together for a chapbook that will feature writing from both poets and their respective manuscripts. I'd like to express thanks to everyone and they'll be more updates coming in the near future.

Thanks

It's been a lot of troubling things going on in the past month. I'd like to give everyone who has been supportive of me and all of my efforts thanks. I'd like to thank all the judges and competitors of both the Dudley Randall Poetry Competition and the Woman and Gender Studies Creative Writing Competition, of which I finished 3rd and 2nd respectively. I'll keep everyone posted on my next chapbook entitled Murmur, hopefully being released this summer.

When the rain stops

When the rain stops
I"ll still try to
remember what the
kiss we never had
feels like.

When the rain stops
I can no longer imagine
that you are stroking
my bare scalp once more.

When the rain stops
it will all be real
no more
wiping the nimbus from your eyes,
fingers innertwining,
feet resting parallel,
kicks from a growing butterfly in your stomach,
sweet scents of sunrised meals,
clothes used as postcards from memories,
no more parts of myself given for no reason.

When the rain stops
there is just the day
no person to look forward to
telling how the day went
just the day itself.

When the rain stops
I promise myself I won't call
a number I never had in the first place,
or think about introducing myself
to a person who barely knows what they mean to me.

When the rain stops
I'll still be here
stuck in place like
a bucket, with no handle
holding it together.