Words and Shit

Join Chibbi and Rooster in conversation and celebration with Xavier Alexander!

Xavier is an indigenous Caribbean Afro-Latino Virgo who love smoking blunts, his dog papi and video games. He like to think of himself as the dash of hot sauce in the soup of life.

Joining us this week, Brandon Alexander Williams drops into the studio to share some work and talk about life, hip hop, teaching, and so much more. Tune in live to get to know the person behind the poetry!  

Born in Maywood and raised in Peoria, Illinois, Brandon Alexander Williams is a poet, MC and DJ. He is the most recent recipient of the Grant Wood Fellowship and subsequently named the first “Professor of Hip-Hop”at the University of Iowa’s School of Music where he taught courses in Hip-Hop Studies and Culture. Williams is an alumnus of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale where he produced “The Yard: An A’Capella/Hip-Hop Musical”. As an active MC and DJ, he has performed and taught throughout the country, produced nine albums, published two books and given several guest lectures and keynotes centered around art-integrated education.

Join Chibbi and Raqui as they meet, talk poetry, and shoot the sh*t with the phenomenal Seema Reza.

Seema Reza is a poet and essayist and the author of the poetry collection A Constellation of Half-Lives (Write Bloody Publishing) and the memoir When the World Breaks Open (Red Hen Press). Based outside of Washington DC she is the CEO of Community Building Art Works, an arts organization that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization among a military population struggling with emotional and physical injuries. In 2015 she was awarded the Col John Gioia Patriot Award by USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore for her work with service members. An alumnus of Goddard College and VONA, her writing has appeared on-line and in print in Bellevue Literary Review, Green Mountain Review, The Washington Post, The LA Review of Books, The Feminist Wire, HerKind, The Offing, and Entropy among others.

Join Chibbi and Raqui as they meet, talk poetry, and shoot the sh*t with the incredible Chen Chen and Sam Herschel Wein.

Sam Herschel Wein (he/they) is a Chicago based poet who specializes in perpetual frolicking. They work in queer healthcare and boop around the city on their bike. Their first chapbook, Fruit Mansion (Split Lip Press, 2017) was selected as the winner of the 2016 Turnbuckle Chapbook prize. Their second chapbook, GESUNDHEIT!, a collaboration with Chen Chen, is part of the 2019-2020 Glass Poetry Press series. He co-founded and edits the poetry journal Underblong. Recent poems can be found in Hobart Pulp, Sundog Lit, and Bat City Review, among others. They can be found in the cheese aisle of most stores, in the middle of a hug, or editing poems at your local coffee shop.

Chen Chen is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and the forthcoming book of essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God (Noemi Press, 2023). His debut book of poems, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. He teaches at Brandeis University.

Join hosts Chibbi & Rooster as they feature the incredible Lady Brion for a night of poetry and conversation. Tune in live to get to know the person behind the poetry and be part of the conversation!  

Lady Brion is an international spoken word artist, poetry coach, activist, organizer, and educator, teaching creative writing at the middle and elementary school level, coaching poetry teams in over 10 institutions for the Louder Than A Bomb poetry program and residencies in over 15 K-12 institutions. She was part of the Baltimore Slammegeddon Slam Team, winning the 2016 National Poetry Slam Championship and the 2017 Southern Fried Regional Slam Championship. Brion is a recipient of the Open Society Institute Fellowship and received the 2017 Salzburg Fellowship for Social Innovators. She received her B.A. in Communications from Howard University and her MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. Brion is a board member of Dew More Baltimore, an art centered non-profit using spoken word as a tool to foster community and civic engagement, and holds the position of Cultural Curator for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), a grassroots think-tank which advances the public policy interest of Black people in Baltimore through youth leadership development, political advocacy, and autonomous intellectual innovation.

Join hosts Chibbi & Raqui as they feature the illustrious Suzi Q Smith for a night of poetry and conversation. Tune in live to get to know the person behind the poetry and be part of the conversation!  

Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, activist, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. Her collection of poems, A Gospel of Bones, is available from Alternating Current Press, and her second collection, Poems for the End of the World, will be available from Finishing Line Press in June 2021.  

Suzi Q. has also worked extensively as an activist with civil rights organizations, victims advocate organizations, arts organizations, peace organizations, hospitals, prisons, and more. She was the founding Slammaster of Denver’s Slam Nuba, and she spent 12 years in the poetry slam arena as a coach, organizer, and performer. In addition, she has worked extensively with youth, serving as a Teaching Artist with Youth On Record, and as a coach of Denver Minor Disturbance Youth Poetry Slam, resulting in two international championships.   

Currently, Suzi Q. Smith performs and teaches poetry and music throughout the U.S., in addition to leading workshops on writing and performance, while she works on her next collections.

This week Chibbi and Raqui broadcast LIVE from the Bbaravado Ink Book Fair in Galveston, TX, sharing work and having conversation with the featured writers, including Torrina Harris, LeChell "The Shootah," Kenji Lockett, Aris Kian and Lupe Mendez! Check it out to hear about their latest work, projects, and what the future holds for each of them.

Hosts Rooster & Raqui welcome award winning poet Analicia Sotelo to the Words and Shit studio!   Analicia Sotelo is the author of Virgin, the inaugural winner of the Jake Adam York Prize, selected by Ross Gay for Milkweed Editions (2018) and the chapbook, Nonstop Godhead, selected by Rigoberto González for Poetry Society of America. The poem “I’m Trying to Write a Poem About a Virgin and It’s Awful” was selected for Best New Poets 2015 by Tracy K. Smith. Poems have also appeared in the The New Yorker, Boston Review, The Nation, Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day and The New England Review. Analicia is a Canto Mundo fellow and the recipient of the 2016 DISQUIET International Literary Prize. Analicia holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Houston.

Join hosts Chibbi & Rooster as they feature the new Houston Poet Laurette Outspoken Bean for a night of poetry and conversation. Tune in live to get to know the person behind the poetry and be part of the conversation!

The New Jersey born, San Antonio raised, H-Town based military brat was introduced to the arts and world cultures at a very young age and has not let go of it. "An energetic pioneer for poetry, in all its different sizes and shapes, Bean is dedicated to making sure that poets get heard," Emily Hinds of Arts and Culture Magazine wrote of Bean. Bean uses poetry to engage different mediums and institutions to create new and engaging art, such as being the first poet to perform on Houston Ballet's main stage with their production "Play." He has also been commissioned to write and perform a national campaign on diversity for Pabst Blue Ribbon and VICE while creating/producing his own festival Plus Fest: the EVERYTHING plus POETRY Festival. In 2008, Bean helped develop Texas' largest youth poetry slam organization and slam team, Meta-Four Houston, with Shannon Buggs and DiverseWorks. In which he stills coaches and uses it as a vehicle today to mentor Houston's youth. He started performing spoken-word in 2005. Outspoken Bean is a true renaissance man and culture bearer through poetry, Bean willingly seeks, finds, collaborates, and creates new ways for people to experience poetry through multiple mediums.

Join hosts Chibbi & Raqui as they kick off season 3 of Words and Sh*t with the San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea "Vocab" Sanderson, to talk about what she's been up to in the past year and a half, despite the pandemic, and what she still has planned! Tune in live to get to know the person behind the poetry!

Andrea Sanderson, San Antonio, TX. Poet Laureate 2020-2023, performs as “Vocab” in her hometown of San Antonio, Texas. “Watching her perform, the word “hero” comes to mind. And not “hero” for the sake of just skill, but for her work in her community: Sanderson teaches poetry workshops, mentors, builds up and encourages artists to pursue their art, and gives them platforms to showcase their talent.

Sanderson’s interest in other people’s art and artistic development became a passion of hers, and she started curating her own shows and creating platforms for other artists to hone their craft by hosting open mics.” (From The San Antonio Current, Jan. 16, 2018.)

Her poetry is published in, The Texas Observer, January 2016 Issue, Pariah Anthology SFA Press, March 2016, and Sycorax’s Daughters, Cedar Grove Publishing, January 2017, Soundbite Vol. 3, Anti-Languorous Project, Spring 2019. Her debut book entitled: She Lives In Music, published on Flower Song Press, was released on Valentine’s Day 2020. Her album She Tastes Like Music, is available on all music streaming platforms.

She received awards, Performer of the Year, Influencer of the Year, from Project Forward, and Dream Voice, from the Dream Week Commission. Sanderson is the winner of the 2019 People’s Choice Award, awarded by Luminaria Artist Foundation (formerly known as: Artist Foundation of San Antonio).In May of 2020 she was awarded Best Live Entertainment/Band Musician of the Year by the SEA Awards.