Drawl | Southern Spoken Word Poetry

Jonathan Samuel Eddie is a spoken word comedian hailing from Columbus, GA. This alumnus of Georgia Southern University represented the city of Atlanta at the National Poetry Slam competition as a member of the 2012 and 2014 Art Amok Poetry Slam Teams. He was also the 2012 and 2014 Grand Slam Champion at Art Amok. Jonathan was also a member of the 2015 Java Monkey Slam Team (Atlanta), ranking among the top 20 slam teams in the nation that year. At the 2014 and 2015 Southern Fried Regional Poetry Festival, he was among the top 10 individual competing poets. This teaching artist travels the country leading poetry workshops and performing his original work.Jonathan was recognized for his work as an "artivist" as a recipient of a 2013 Spoken Word Gala Community Service Award. With support from Alternate ROOTS, he most recently penned and staged the one man show, Journey Here, which candidly chronicled his life as a writer/performer, black man, teaching artist, and caregiver for his mother, whom was living with Alzheimer's. He published a chapbook of his work entitled "A Whole Notha Kinda Missing" that is available on Amazon.

As an actor, he has graced stages in productions such as the world premiere of ACE: The Eugene Bullard Story, Blues For An Alabama Sky, The Foreigner, and Clybourne Park to name a few. He portrays Crispus Attucks in an interactive video display at the African American Military History Museum in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. As a director, Jonathan has overseen numerous productions, including three of his original works to stage, STIMULUS, Blues For Mama, and WORDS through his company, Yellow Mojo Productions. He has opened up for the likes of comedians such as Bruce Bruce and Earthquake, and was a featured stand up comic at the 2014 Black Box Comedy Festival in Atlanta, GA. His poetry has been featured on the digital platforms of Write About Now and All Def Poetry. He most recently was a featured performer on "The Golden Mic" hosted by Sunni Patterson on The Congo Television Network.

He currently serves as the founder/director of the Fountain City Teen Poetry Slam, an organization that inspires youth to use their creativity as a positive outlet in their daily lives. From his work as a wellness instructor with the Muscogee County Juvenile Drug Court and Aaron Cohn Regional Youth Detention Center,he has also designed an effective and fun-filled curriculum that teaches students life skills through creative writing. Students have experienced the benefits of this auxiliary arts education in their intellectual, personal, and social development. Through weekly workshops, poetry slams, national/regional/local performance opportunities, and community service, he’s blessed to watch the future take shape one word at a time.

Glori B is the stage name of Austin poet Gloria C. Adams. Adams moved frequently as a child, living in Louisiana, Colorado, Texas, and Florida, but for more than half of her life she has lived in or near Austin, TX. She considers Austin her home town.

Currently, Adams lives in Leander and works as a 7th grade English and ESL teacher at a middle school in Austin. She graduated with a degree in English Language Arts Education from St. Edward’s University. She has a 6 year old daughter named Sylvia.

With her business partner, Skylar Landsee, Adams has been writer, producer, or director on three short films: Hard Bargain, With Child, and Ghost Pants. With Child took third place at the 2011 Sorin Reel Film Festival, and Ghost Pants took second place at the same festival in 2012.

Adams has had poetry published in Sorin Oak Review, Open Ear of the Universe, and J-SOURCE. She has presented collections of original poetry at the Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression, as well as the Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society Annual Convention, at which she was awarded “Best Poetry Collection on Convention Theme.”

In 2012, Adams discovered Austin Poetry Slam and began to compete. She quickly became a part of the Austin slam community as a poet and host, and in the fall of 2012 was elected Austin Poetry Slam secretary. She was the year-end points total system for the APS 2012-2013 slam year. She competed in the finals for both Austin Poetry Slam and Neo Soul Poetry Lounge, making the Neo Soul team which defended its title as Group Piece Champions at the National Poetry Slam.

Gloria won the personal honor of Haiku Champion both at the 2013 National Poetry Slam and at the 2013 Individual World Poetry Slam. She also competed in the 2012 and 2013 Individual World Poetry Slams, and in 2013 ranked 26th.

Neil Hilborn, a slam poet from Houston, TX, is the most-viewed slam poet on YouTube and his poem, "OCD" is Button Poetry's top viewed video. His poems often detail personal experiences and battles with mental illness or other disorders. He is best known for his poem "OCD", which has garnered critical acclaim online with 75 million views. Hilborn regularly tours to perform his poetry at colleges and other venues.

He became interested in creative writing at an early age, writing his first poem when he was eight years old. As a child, he was diagnosed with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and was additionally diagnosed with bipolar disorder while in college. Though he did not originally use poetry as a coping mechanism, when he was a teenager his work shifted toward helping him deal with his disorders. Hilborn continues to perform with Button Poetry, as well as in competition, including the National Poetry Slam (NPS).

Hilborn's first chapbook, Clatter, was self-published in 2012 before being picked up by Button Poetry and re-published in 2013. The book is best known for the poem also entitled "Clatter" These poems have all been performed in previous slam poetry events.

Hilborn's second book, Our Numbered Days, was released on May 14, 2015. The book is a collection of 45 poems. "Our Numbered Days", specifically, is divided into six different sections spanning the entire collection. Our Numbered Days features some of Hilborn's most well-known poetry, including "Joey" and "OCD". Arianna Miller is cited in her critical review as stating, "Hilborn wants readers to question his work, to use his pieces as a means of learning not only about oneself, but also about the world around him/her/them". Additionally, she states that the book raises more questions rather than answers, asking readers to look at themselves and force themselves to read heavy topics previously avoided. All of this has earned the book the title of Amazon bestseller with more than 50,000 copies in print.

The Future, Hilborn's third book is due for release on April 17, 2018 and is the result of two years of writing while touring.

Sherrie Zantea (Candy) has been writing and performing poetry for over 20 years. Candy made the 2007 Dallas Poetry Slam Team, and to date has been on 10 teams, the first woman to coach 6 and she is the current Executive Director of the Dallas Poetry Slam Organization.

Candy is a teaching artist and teaches creative writing in the DFW School Districts. She recently created a teaching artist program for Dallas Poetry Slam and works for and/or partnered with Young DFW Writers LTAB (Louder Than a Bomb) Program, Rockwall ISD, and Lancaster ISD. She is the current Teaching Artist Lead Instructor and Program Developer for The Writers Garret, Big Thought Youth Development Non-Profit, and the Dallas Independent School District.

In addition to her poetry slam experience, she has added to her resume 2017 and 2018 Host City Coordinator of the Women of the World Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam Coordinator with Poetry Slam Inc.. She maintains a lucrative partnership with WordSpace Non-Profit literary organization where she serves as Administrator and Facilitator of social media affairs.

Candy has published a poetry/recipe book "Heirlooms"; a spiritual chap book, "Sherrie's Sanctuary"; poetry CD, "Candy Unplugged"; and a DVD, "The Candy Project". She continues to provide workshops, features, and leadership through literary arts all over the world.

A Scribe Called Quess? is a poet, educator, actor, playwright, and activist in that order. He is a 2-time national slam poetry championship title winner and founding member of Team SNO (Slam New Orleans), New Orleans’ three-time national champion slam poetry team. His accomplishments with Team SNO have earned him honors from the Mayor of New Orleans as well as from City Council. He is a two-time Slam New Orleans Semi-Finals Slam winner and New Orleans Museum of Art Slam Champion. 

His poetry led him to the classroom where he has served nine years as an educator having served as an English teacher, Humanities teacher, Instructional Coach, and currently a Librarian and Poetry teacher. His work as an educator and youth worker has been highlighted on NPR in the Voices of Educators series and even taken him to Oxford University to speak on school reform.

As an actor and theater maker, he has written for and acted in several plays including plays with Junebug Productions (Voices from the Back of the Class, Lockdown, Gomela), ArtSpot Productions (Rumors of War), Urban Bush Women (Summer Leadership Institute 2009), and other esteemed outfits. In summer of 2014 he was awarded a residency at the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans as a part of the inaugural class of the DISTILLERY, where he work shopped his first stage play, “Crossroads,” which is still in development. In 2017, he directed and debuted his first one-man show “Sleeper Cell: a stage performance based on the book by A Scribe Called Quess?” in the In Fringe Festival of New Orleans. 

As an activist, he co-founded BYP100 NOLA, a young adult organization that advocates for the protection of black youth from state sanctioned violence. He also recently co-founded Take Em Down NOLA, a coalition of organizers and activists committed to the removal of white supremacist monuments, school names and street names in New Orleans. As his work as an artist and educator has always explored issues of social justice and systemic racism, his work as an activist has offered the perfect opportunity for his arts and pedagogy to meet action.