How we grow and live influences everything we do—who we are and who we continue to become does the same. As artists, these many branches stretch into the things we create. Listen to poet Jason Edwards and I discuss life, its evolution, and its binding movement with one’s art.

In 1997 Jason Edwards joined the Dallas Slam Team. One year later he and his team got the first perfect score for a group piece in Slam Poetry history and won 2nd Place in the 1998 National Poetry Slam (which Time Magazine described as "triumphant"). Jason moved to Austin in 2000 and that summer went on a national tour as part of “Slam America" with 100 other poets and performed shows across the country. In 2001 Jason formed a gay performance troupe with fellow slam poet Ragan Fox called “Trigger Happy Jacks,” combining poetry, performance art, theater and comedy. 

Jason’s spoken word career took a halt when he lost his his trans-sister in a tragic car accident and began to experience the beginning stages of schizophrenia. Through the following years he went through many different combinations of medicated states and finally found the right combination to begin to grow as a writer once more. In 2011 he recorded an album incorporating spoken word and music. In May of 2015, Jason was asked to be featured as part of the 20th Anniversary of the Austin Slam and performed in front of his peers for the first time in over a decade. In 2016 he had the honor of opening up for the U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. In 2019 he co-founded a writing workshop with long time friend and poet Jena Kirkpatrick called “The Austin Poetry Salon.” He is currently working on a book chronicling his life.