There's actually a guy who started all this stuff...
Marc Smith is creator/founder of the Uptown Poetry Cabaret. 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 world exported to over 1000 cities large and small.
Chalking up more than a 2000 performances in nightclubs, concert halls, libraries, universities, and on top of the occasional hot dog stand, Smith continues to host and perform every Sunday night at the Green Mill to standing room only crowds. He has staged a multitude of poetry related productions including Chicago’s 1991, 1999, & 2002 National Poetry Slams, Slam Dunk Poetry Day at Chicago’s Field Museum, Summer Solstice Poetry Shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Poetry Hot Dog Cart for Chicago’s 2005 “Stirring Things Up Festival”, Looptopia 2007, and scores of high school and college events.
He currently guides and directs Chicago’s Speak’Easy Ensemble an innovative performance poetry troupe that specializes in One Poetic Voice performance interpretation, a new style of poetic translation that presents two languages simultaneously in dynamic performance. He collaborated with Mark Eleveld to create Spoken Word Revolution volume one and Spoken Word Redux, two of the most important and best-selling book/CD anthologies of spoken word artists and performance poets. His collection of poems Crowdpleaser and his CDs It’s About Time, Quarters in the Juke Box, and Love & Politics are will someday be available (if we ever get around to selling stuff) at our website store.
Chalking up more than a 2000 performances in nightclubs, concert halls, libraries, universities, and on top of the occasional hot dog stand, Smith continues to host and perform every Sunday night at the Green Mill to standing room only crowds. He has staged a multitude of poetry related productions including Chicago’s 1991, 1999, & 2002 National Poetry Slams, Slam Dunk Poetry Day at Chicago’s Field Museum, Summer Solstice Poetry Shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Poetry Hot Dog Cart for Chicago’s 2005 “Stirring Things Up Festival”, Looptopia 2007, and scores of high school and college events.
He currently guides and directs Chicago’s Speak’Easy Ensemble an innovative performance poetry troupe that specializes in One Poetic Voice performance interpretation, a new style of poetic translation that presents two languages simultaneously in dynamic performance. He collaborated with Mark Eleveld to create Spoken Word Revolution volume one and Spoken Word Redux, two of the most important and best-selling book/CD anthologies of spoken word artists and performance poets. His collection of poems Crowdpleaser and his CDs It’s About Time, Quarters in the Juke Box, and Love & Politics are will someday be available (if we ever get around to selling stuff) at our website store.