Video - Claudia Alick @ Mike Geffner Presents The Inspired Word

Claudia Alick @ Mike Geffner Presents The Inspired Word, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011 @ One and One Bar/Restaurant, Nexus Lounge, Manhattan, NYC.

Alick is a playwright, performance artist, actress, producer, teacher, journalist, and HBO Def Poetry poet. She produces the outdoor performance series "The Green Show" for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, has guest-lectured at New York University, Montgomery College, taught with Arena Stage and The Shakespeare Theatre, and was named by American Theater Magazine as one of 25 theater artists who will shape American Theater in the next 25 years. She has also served as the Artistic Director of Smokin' Word Productions, authored and directed plays staged at The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, LaMama E.T.C., Cherry Lane Theater, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, and is a member of the award winning NY Neofuturists. She lives in Ashland, Oregon.

The Inspired Word is New York City's hottest new spoken word poetry series that happens every Thursday night in downtown Manhattan, produced by longtime writer/journalist and former Village Voice columnist Mike Geffner.

Videographer: Elaine Delehant

Music by: Toni Blackman, "Ha Ha."

Def Poetry Stars Regie Cabico & Claudia Alick Headline @ The Inspired Word - Feb. 17

Mike Geffner Presents The Inspired Word features HBO Def Poetry stars Regie Cabico and Claudia Alick! Rare New York City appearances! Regie is coming in from D.C., Claudia from Oregon. Don't miss these two forces of nature. + 12-slot open mic (open not only to poets and spoken word artists but fiction/nonfiction writers, comedians, monologists, singers, and musicians).

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BIOS:

Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including The Outlaw Bible of American Poery, Spoken Word Revolution & Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He is a 3 time National Poetry Slam Finalist and appeared on 2 seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. He received a NY Innovation Theater Award for his work in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind & fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts, The DC Commission for the Arts & The Hip Hop Theater Festival. He recently performed on tour with Sister Spit & co-wrote 2 Dicks & A Diva with D'Lo & Kit Yan for Zero Capital.



Claudia Alick is a playwright, performance artist, actress, producer, teacher, journalist, and HBO Def Poetry poet. She produces the outdoor performance series "The Green Show" for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, has guest-lectured at New York University, Montgomery College, taught with Arena Stage and The Shakespeare Theatre, and was named by American Theater Magazine as one of 25 theater artists who will shape American Theater in the next 25 years. She has also served as the Artistic Director of Smokin' Word Productions, authored and directed plays staged at The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, LaMama E.T.C., Cherry Lane Theater, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, and is a member of the award winning NY Neofuturists. She lives in Ashland, Oregon.



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When: Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011

Where: One and One Bar & Restaurant (downstairs Nexus Lounge)
76 East 1st Street (corner of 1st Avenue)
Manhattan, NYC
http://www.oneandoneny.com/
Phone: (212) 598-9126

Time: 6:30pm

Cover Charge: $10

Must be 21 years of age or older. Please make sure to bring ID.

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Claudia Alick's poem "What’s my name?"

WHAT'S MY NAME?

What's my name?
What's my name?
What's my name?

Don’t you hold your tongue
try and look to the left or the right
you better stare me in the eye
hope you aint blinded by the light

Claudia the unbelievable
Claudia the unforgettable
Claudia the unbeatable
Claudia the undefeatable

You just try and forget this
I aint that easy to miss
I’m the hot disabled black bisexual chick
I’m a fill every demographic

Give me a box and I’ll check it
Give me a stereotype and I’ll wreck it
Give me a barrier, I’ll break it
Give me a scholarship and I’ll take it

Cause I’m the ultimate minority
Posterchild for diversity
Daughter of an immigrant
And us 2nd Gens know we gotta make it

Cause when you got odds against you
Only choice is to be excellent
And when you go both ways you got more places to go
When you get where folks is at you get where they coming from

So here I am letting all my seams show
Cause who gets it better than one of your own
We all belong to the same family
I can’t promise to be polite or PC

But this life’s on loan so I’ll speak with all honesty
So here it is the agony and the ecstasy
The gifts of privilege, the history of slavery
The suffragettes progeny, the medical mystery
The strivers dream, the cynics bravery

Cause I’ve Gots to believe it all turns out fine
That every challenge that kicks my behind
Just gives me more opportunities to refine
The mad skills I got that blow your mind

So Give me a box and I’ll check it
Give me a stereotype and I’ll wreck it
Give me a barrier, I’ll break it
Give me a future and I’ll create it

Cause I aint quittin till this game is won
Even if it’s rigged and they aint given ya nothin
You just try and tell me this shit aint fun
Cause I might not be able to run

But I roll hard and I roll fast
Like I got the devil on my ass
I’ll never be caught last
So what did I ask
What I ask

The unbelievableThe unforgettableThe unbeatableThe undefeatable

What’s my name?!

- Claudia Alick

New Pics! The Inspired Word - July 1, 2010

From left to right: Sal Treppiedi, Claudia Alick, Osagyefo

Sal Treppiedi (l), Vanessa Hidary (r)

The Inspired Word in NYC/Thursday, July 1st - Claudia Alick, Osagyefo, Sal Treppiedi + Open Mic!

Mike Geffner presents The Inspired Word New York City poetry/spoken word event, featuring Claudia Alick, Osagyefo, Sal Treppiedi + 10-slot open mic!

When: Thursday, July 1

Where: One and One Bar & Restaurant (downstairs Nexus Lounge)
76 East 1st Street (corner of 1st Avenue)
Manhattan, NYC
http://www.oneandoneny.com/
Phone: (212) 598-9126

Time: 7pm (open mic sign-up starts at 6:30)

Cover Charge: $10

Must be 21 years of age or older. Please make sure to bring ID.

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Claudia Alick is a playwright, performance artist, actress, producer, teacher, journalist, and HBO Def Poetry poet. She produces the outdoor performance series "The Green Show" for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, has guest-lectured at New York University, Montgomery College, taught with Arena Stage and The Shakespeare Theatre, and was named by American Theater Magazine as one of 25 theater artists who will shape American Theater in the next 25 years. She has also served as the Artistic Director of Smokin' Word Productions, authored and directed plays staged at The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, LaMama E.T.C., Cherry Lane Theater, and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, and is a member of the award winning NY Neofuturists. She lives in Ashland, Oregon.



Osagyefo is a Jamaican-born poet who never gives straight answers because he believes there are no straight answers in life. His words are filled with sound and power, the raw creative energy of the universe, as he "spits fiery rhymes,” Billboard once wrote of him. In other words, you don't just hear Osagyefo, you feel him. He has performed all over the world, from Africa to Jamaica, from Switzerland to England, and is the author of Psalms of Osagyefo…Chanting down Babylon. He was awarded the Zoo Award in 2002 for the best overall performer/reading for by the Farrago poetry society in London and currently resides in Brooklyn.



Sal Treppiedi is the author of two chapbooks: Random Thoughts of An Obese Mind (1998) and Tellin' Tales Out of School (2010). He was born in Brooklyn, NY, but currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico after a six year detour through Riverside, California. He has been an educator for almost 20 years, having spent the first 15 as a middle school English teacher and the last years as a high school activities director. Treppiedi is the founder of VE=NT (Voices Emerging=New Thunder), the annual New Mexico Middle School Poetry Slam. His work has appeared in several publications including Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Collection, plus "Central Avenue," "Sage Trail" and "Lunarosity," an online journal. Treppiedi also headlined the recent Stepping Out Poetry Festival in Socorro, NM. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico (though his hometown is Brooklyn), is married to Deborah and has two daughters, Calle & Leah.



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The Inspired Word Blog: http://inspiredwordnyc.blogspot.com/
The Inspired Word on Twitter: http://twitter.com/InspiredWordNYC
The Inspired Word YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/NYCInspiredWord

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Mike Geffner
Founder/Producer

Marvin Mendlinger
Assistant Director

Erik "Advocate of Wordz" Maldonado
MC/Host

Marron Cox
Hostess Extraordinaire