LEAF Global Arts & The louderARTS Project Present
LEAF Lit Live!
Literary Showcase #2
Because Love is an act of Courage
Hosted by Lynne Procope and James Navé
We have the power to change
the end of the story.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2020
7 PM ET • 6 PM CT • 5 PM MT • 4 PM PT
Tune in on Facebook Live at LEAF Global Arts
https://www.facebook.com/theLEAF.org/
Support our artists! Suggested donation for this event is $15. Your donation will go directly to the poets.
Our Featured Poets
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor • Rico Fredrick • Samatha Thornhill
Yesenia Montilla * Lynne Procope (emcee) • James Navé (emcee)
It’s time to let black, brown, and indigenous artists push the boundaries of ART and be genuinely seen and heard.
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is a poet and workshop facilitator. The recipient of the 2015 Barnes and Noble Writers For Writers Award, she is the founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series. Cheryl earned an MFA in Poetry from Stonecoast: The University of Southern Maine, and an MSW from Fordham University. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Raw Air, Night When Moon Follows, Convincing the Body, and Arrival. A poetry judge for The New York Foundation for the Arts, and The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, she has facilitated poetry workshops for Cave Canem, Poets & Writers, and The Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center. Her poetry has been commissioned by The Joyce Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts for Ronald K. Brown: Evidence, A Dance Company. A VONA fellow, her work has been published in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Pluck!, Killings Journal of Arts & Letters, and Adrienne. Her life papers and portfolio are stored at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in NYC.
Rico Fredrick
Attillah Springer
Rico Frederick is an award-winning performance poet, graphic designer, and the author of the book Broken Calypsonian (2014). He was the first poet to represent all four New York City poetry venues at the National Poetry Slam, of which he was Grand Slam Champion in 2010 and 2012. His poems, artistic work, and films have been featured in the New York Times, Muzzle, No Dear Magazine, The Big Apple Film Festival, and elsewhere. He is a Trinidadian transplant living in New York City.
Thuli Zuma
Thulia Zuma
Thuli Zuma is a South African poet, screenwriter, actor, and director who has shared her work through multiple mediums at home and abroad. She placed 2nd at the 2012 Individual World Poetry Slam, represented Urbana New York at the National Poetry Slam, and in an interesting turn of events, repped the USA at the 2013 World Cup of Poetry Slam in France. As a screenwriter, she has been part of the record-breaking telenovela writing team, Uzalo, since its inception. Thuli is also the head writer of the 2018 drama series set in a KZN hostel exploring the intersection of love, violence, maskandi music, and guns-for-hire called eHostela. She co-created, directed, and head-wrote the ground-breaking pre-colonial epic Ifalakhe, a fantasy that tells the story of an Africa century before its colonisation. 2020 saw her head-write a new medical daily drama series Durban Gen., which follows the trials and triumphs of young black doctors working in the countries' most acclaimed hospital. 2020 also introduced her to the board game pandemic amid a global pandemic (oh, what a time to be alive). Thuli has long-been convinced by art as an imperative to change; because of this, she aims not just to create new work but work, which affects and moves. She enjoys water at room temperature and believes in the power of ideas and the words we use to communicate them.
Rondell Benjamin
Rondell Benjamin
A lifelong disciple of Martial Arts, Rondel Benjamin has studied over 24 Different Martial traditions, including Muay Thai (Thai Boxing), Filipino Kali, Capoeira Angola, Russian Sambo, and Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. After ten years of traveling, Rondel returned to Trinidad to pursue a lifelong dream - to discover the Roots of Trinidad & Tobago's National Martial Tradition – Kalinda. The depth, richness, and present state of the art form lead Rondel with Co-Founder Kegan Taylor to form the Bois Academy of Trinidad & Tobago. The Academy's focus is to protect Kalinda's living tradition through archiving, immersion, dissemination and seeking national recognition for the living Masters of the art form. The Bois Academy team realized the urgent need to revitalize the Iconic figure of the Bois Man in modern culture. They have embarked on several projects to expose key elements of this cultural expression in contemporary media. BATT has several Music CDs, has been featured in and supported two documentaries, authored one Book, and developed an extensive music, video, and literature archive. The Academy has also performed and contributed to the annual Canboulay re-enactment celebrations at Carnival time. Rondel has recently assisted in the BFA program at the University of Trinidad and Tobago to introduce Kalinda and Capoeira into their dance program. He has also developed a program for at-risk male youth using Capoeira and Kalinda as tools for initiation and personal growth. He pioneered an anti-bullying/bully prevention program based on the "No Bully fear Program and traditional African Diaspora Youth development methods.
Your Emcees
Lynne Procope
Lynne Procope
Lynne Procope is a Trinidad-born American poet, Cave Canem fellow, a former National Poetry Slam champion and a co-author of the collaborative collection, Burning Down the House (Soft Skull). Her poems appear in magazines, journals, reviews and anthologies across the hemisphere. She writes, travels, teaches, edits, curates and seeks transformative learning in all of it. She is the former executive director and a cofounder of the louderARTS Project.
James Navé
James Navé Photo credit: John van Hasselt, Getty Images
James Navé has performed for the public well over 10,000 times over his long career as a poet, teacher, and storyteller. As co-founder of the landmark performance company Poetry Alive!, he memorized over 600 poems and has performed shows and workshops in the United States and International Schools throughout West Africa, South America, Asia, and Europe. Navé holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and Navé has been the Poetry Slam emcee for Asheville, NC's LEAF Festival, and an advisory team of LEAF Global Arts since 1995. His latest book of poems, The 100 Days, will be published by 3: A Taos Press in late 2021. Navé once owned a pizza restaurant on the coast of Carolina, won a poetry slam at Chicago's Green Mill with a perfect 30 score, and camped out on a rooftop in Manhattan in mid-September so he could watch the Empire State Building, the full moon, and the World Trade Center's two beams of memorial light.
Support our artists! Suggested donation for this event is $15. Your donation will go directly to the poets.