Respect the Mic

“Poets I know sometimes joke that the poetry club at Oak Park River Forest High School is the best MFA program in the Chicagoland area. Like all great jokes, this one is dead serious.” -Eve L. Ewing, award-winning poet, playwright, scholar, and sociologist

“This anthology holds twenty years of evidence of the power of poetry…This is a primer for the next twenty years of great poems and poets.” –Terrance Hayes, National Book Award-winning poet

“This anthology feels like a living, breathing thing. The scope and depth of Oak Park’s program–and of poetry’s ability to transform writers and readers alike–are palpable in these pages.” –Tavi Gevinson, writer, Rookie magazine editor, and actress

“What a book! … This is the intimate gift poetry has always carried in all its seams and weavings. This is the crucial befriending.” –Naomi Shihab Nye, Pushcart award-winning Poetry Editor for the New York Times and the National Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate.

“Ask a teenager ‘How was school?’ and you are likely to hear one word in reply: ‘Boring.’ Fortunately, the Spoken Word Club anthology has the potential to alter that response forever. These poems and personal stories offer evidence of the power of the word to engage young people in learning about the one thing they never find boring–themselves. Sometimes engagement begins on the page.” –Carol Jago, Former President of the National Council of Teachers of English
 
“Electric and expansive.” — Kirkus Reviews