"Today, the poetry scene flourishes at New York open-mic spots like the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Brooklyn's YWCA Tea Party and Harlem's Sugar Shack. Progeny of hip poets--the Beats of the 50s and protest poets of the 60s and 70s--these up-and-coming literati cast their diverse spells of word beats inspiring young contemporaries in Cleveland, Ohio, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta; later branching out internationally to poetry circuit venues in Tokyo, Rio de Janiero, London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Istanbul."<BR>--Zoe Anglesey<BR> Editor, Listen Up! <BR>Spoken word poetry is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Here for the first time in one hot volume are poems from the nation's top spoken word artists. Listen Up! features nine brilliant award-winning scribes who have ignited audiences worldwide with their soulful verse, bold alliterations, and sultry fusion of rhythm and rhyme--electrifying audiences as they chant, sing, recite, and improvise their poetry and powerful point of view. <BR>Among these nine literary luminaries are Carl Hancock Rux, named by The New York Times as one of thirty young artists "most likely to change the culture in the next thirty years"; Jessica Care Moore, a record-breaking five-time winner of the Apollo competition; and Saul Williams, co-scriptwriter and star of the feature film Slam, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the prestigious Camera D'Or at Cannes. <BR>Packed with penetrating interviews on the craft of writing poetry, insight into the art of performance, and on-target, off-guard photos of the poets in action at history-making poetry slams, this unforgettable collection is the next best thing to being therelive.

"These poets protect the softer, more mindful core of nerves--the synapses that compute the flow of electricity between poem and poetry audience--adding to the whole story we adore as verse."
--MIGUEL ALGARíN
Founder and Director
The Nuyorican Poets Café

"Listening to the new poets, will we ever be the same? This anthology has a stake in freedom, is a proclamation for poetics. Zoë Anglesey is a literary abolitionist--she breaks through the barriers that separate us from the new poetry."
--E. ETHELBERT MILLER
Director,
African American Resource Center,
Howard University

Zoë Anglesey is an arts journalist, poet, and translator. A former editor of The Village Voice Literary Supplement and head of the Brooklyn Moon Café's "Meet the Author" series, she is now curator of the Literary Arts Reading Series at the Pratt Institute. She is also poetry editor at The MultiCultural Review and contributing editor to Bomb magazine.