Poetry Live! is an evening dedicated to the electrifying power of spoken word poetry. Following the massive success of last year's event, to which Cate Burtner for the Stanford Daily, wrote, "For students and educators alike, Poetry Live! took the written word out of an academic setting and directly into our imaginations.," we are happy to announce the 3rd annual Poetry Live!. Curated by lecturer in Creative Writing and former Stegner Fellow Hieu Minh Nguyen, this year's event will bring together the award-winning poetry and multi-hyphenate talents of Safia Elhillo and Jamila Woods plus members of Stanford's Spoken Word Collective for a series of performances.
Jamila Woods is a poet, songwriter, and performing artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her first solo album, HEAVN was released by JagJaguwar Records in 2017 to critical acclaim. Her sophomore offering, LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019), features 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers, and visual artists who have influenced the creator's life and work -- including James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. An internationally touring artist, Jamila has been featured on NPR's Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has shared stages with Corinne Bailey Rae, Rafael Saadiq, Bonobo, Common, Chance the Rapper, Brittany Howard, Macklemore, and many others. Her most recent project, Water Made Us, was released by JagJaguwar Records in October 2023.
An award-winning poet, Jamila's work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes in her review of HEAVN, "It makes you wish all singers were poets." Jamila's poetry has been published in POETRY, Poets.org, and The Offing, and was featured in the 2020 Library of America anthology "African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song." She has been awarded writing residencies at Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, BLKSPACE on Ryder Farm, and Civitella Ranieri. In 2022 she served as artist-in-residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, teaching workshops on poetry, songwriting and live performance.
Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC. She is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and an Arab American Book Award; Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022), which was featured on the Indie Bestseller list; and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country (Make Me a World/Random House, 2021), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and received a California Book Award. Her latest novel in verse, Bright Red Fruit (Make Me a World/Random House, 2024), was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and selected as one of the New York Public Library's best books of the year. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019).
Safia's fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Her work has been translated into several languages and commissioned by Under Armour, Ilia, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet.
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Jamila Woods is a poet, songwriter, and performing artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her first solo album, HEAVN was released by JagJaguwar Records in 2017 to critical acclaim. Her sophomore offering, LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019), features 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers, and visual artists who have influenced the creator's life and work -- including James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. An internationally touring artist, Jamila has been featured on NPR's Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has shared stages with Corinne Bailey Rae, Rafael Saadiq, Bonobo, Common, Chance the Rapper, Brittany Howard, Macklemore, and many others. Her most recent project, Water Made Us, was released by JagJaguwar Records in October 2023.
An award-winning poet, Jamila's work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes in her review of HEAVN, "It makes you wish all singers were poets." Jamila's poetry has been published in POETRY, Poets.org, and The Offing, and was featured in the 2020 Library of America anthology "African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song." She has been awarded writing residencies at Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, BLKSPACE on Ryder Farm, and Civitella Ranieri. In 2022 she served as artist-in-residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, teaching workshops on poetry, songwriting and live performance.
Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC. She is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and an Arab American Book Award; Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022), which was featured on the Indie Bestseller list; and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country (Make Me a World/Random House, 2021), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and received a California Book Award. Her latest novel in verse, Bright Red Fruit (Make Me a World/Random House, 2024), was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and selected as one of the New York Public Library's best books of the year. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019).
Safia's fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Her work has been translated into several languages and commissioned by Under Armour, Ilia, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet.
Poetry Live! is an evening dedicated to the electrifying power of spoken word poetry. Following the massive success of last year's event, to which Cate Burtner for the Stanford Daily, wrote, "For students and educators alike, Poetry Live! took the written word out of an academic setting and directly into our imaginations.," we are happy to announce the 3rd annual Poetry Live!. Curated by lecturer in Creative Writing and former Stegner Fellow Hieu Minh Nguyen, this year's event will bring together the award-winning poetry and multi-hyphenate talents of Safia Elhillo and Jamila Woods plus members of Stanford's Spoken Word Collective for a series of performances.
Jamila Woods is a poet, songwriter, and performing artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her first solo album, HEAVN was released by JagJaguwar Records in 2017 to critical acclaim. Her sophomore offering, LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019), features 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers, and visual artists who have influenced the creator's life and work -- including James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. An internationally touring artist, Jamila has been featured on NPR's Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has shared stages with Corinne Bailey Rae, Rafael Saadiq, Bonobo, Common, Chance the Rapper, Brittany Howard, Macklemore, and many others. Her most recent project, Water Made Us, was released by JagJaguwar Records in October 2023.
An award-winning poet, Jamila's work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes in her review of HEAVN, "It makes you wish all singers were poets." Jamila's poetry has been published in POETRY, Poets.org, and The Offing, and was featured in the 2020 Library of America anthology "African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song." She has been awarded writing residencies at Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, BLKSPACE on Ryder Farm, and Civitella Ranieri. In 2022 she served as artist-in-residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, teaching workshops on poetry, songwriting and live performance.
Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC. She is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and an Arab American Book Award; Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022), which was featured on the Indie Bestseller list; and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country (Make Me a World/Random House, 2021), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and received a California Book Award. Her latest novel in verse, Bright Red Fruit (Make Me a World/Random House, 2024), was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and selected as one of the New York Public Library's best books of the year. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019).
Safia's fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Her work has been translated into several languages and commissioned by Under Armour, Ilia, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet.
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Jamila Woods is a poet, songwriter, and performing artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her first solo album, HEAVN was released by JagJaguwar Records in 2017 to critical acclaim. Her sophomore offering, LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019), features 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers, and visual artists who have influenced the creator's life and work -- including James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. An internationally touring artist, Jamila has been featured on NPR's Tiny Desk, CBS This Morning, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has shared stages with Corinne Bailey Rae, Rafael Saadiq, Bonobo, Common, Chance the Rapper, Brittany Howard, Macklemore, and many others. Her most recent project, Water Made Us, was released by JagJaguwar Records in October 2023.
An award-winning poet, Jamila's work often blurs boundaries between poem and song. As cultural critic Doreen St. Felix writes in her review of HEAVN, "It makes you wish all singers were poets." Jamila's poetry has been published in POETRY, Poets.org, and The Offing, and was featured in the 2020 Library of America anthology "African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song." She has been awarded writing residencies at Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, BLKSPACE on Ryder Farm, and Civitella Ranieri. In 2022 she served as artist-in-residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, teaching workshops on poetry, songwriting and live performance.
Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC. She is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and an Arab American Book Award; Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022), which was featured on the Indie Bestseller list; and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country (Make Me a World/Random House, 2021), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and received a California Book Award. Her latest novel in verse, Bright Red Fruit (Make Me a World/Random House, 2024), was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and selected as one of the New York Public Library's best books of the year. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019).
Safia's fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Her work has been translated into several languages and commissioned by Under Armour, Ilia, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet.
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