MARC KELLY SMITH   (SO  WHAT!)
Slampapi  the founder of the Poetry Slam
Marc Kelly Smith is best known for bringing to the world wide poetry
community a new style of poetic presentation that has spawned one the most
important social/literary arts movements of our time. As stated in the PBS
television series, The United States of Poetry, a “strand of new poetry
began at Chicago’s Green Mill Tavern in 1987 when Marc Smith found a home
for the Poetry Slam.” Since then, performance poetry has spread throughout
the country and across the globe to hundreds of cities, universities, high
schools, festivals, and cultural centers. Each year, teams from American and
European cities compete in the National Poetry Slam, an extravagant festival
blending thousands of poetic voices. Not surprisingly, the Slam has taken
root internationally and includes on-going performances in Germany, UK,
Switzerland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Czech Republic, and
Singapore.
Born on the southeast side of Chicago, Smith’s innate sense of rhythm and
unflinching realism has made him one of the country’s most compelling
performers. Full of grit, his performances break poetic boundaries, giving
audiences an acute vision of what poetry is and what it can be. Smith has
performed and hosted at The Smithsonian Institute, The Lincoln Center for
the Performing Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Chicago Museum of
Contemporary Art, and at such festivals as the Asheville Poetry Festival
(North Carolina), 1st Night Annapolis (Maryland), The Innovator’s Festival
(Washington, DC) and Navy Pier’s Neutral Turf Poetry Festival. He has been
featured on CNN, National Public Radio’s Whadda Ya Know,  ARTbeat Chicago,
Wild Chicago, WGN Chicago’s Very Own, Chicago Slices and has been a many
time member of NewCity’s Lit 50, a listing of the top fifty movers and
shakers in Chicago literature.
Smith’s first published book, Crowdpleaser, celebrates the Green Mill,
particularly its audiences who remain at the core of the Slam’s success.
Illustrated by Michael Acerra, Crowdpleaser, is a remarkable document,
sensitively chronicled by original poems and anecdotes. As with the Slam,
the book defies labels and explores new forms. It has been credited by the
Chicago Book Review, The Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois
Entertainer, New City and The Reader.
Smith’s poetry has been featured in Hammer’s Magazine, Chicago Magazine, The
Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Poetry Slam, an anthology, Aloud! Voices
from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which won the 1994 American Book Award, and
The United States of Poetry, a publication that accompanied the PBS
television series. His work has been cited by The Wall Street Journal,
Playboy, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, New York Times, The Chicago
Tribune and The Chicago Sun Times. Selection of his work can also be heard
on the CD By Someone’s Good Grace, a recording of the first National Slam
Team Champions and Grand Slam: The 1995 National Slam.
Chalking up more than 900 performances at The Green Mill, Smith continues to
host and perform to the Uptown Poetry Slam’s standing room only houses. He
has staged a multitude of special slam productions including The Neutral
Turf Poetry Festival at Navy Pier—Chicago, Slam Dunk Poetry Day at Chicago’s
Field Museum, which had people hanging over the balconies to see the action,
and The Summer Solstice Poetry Show at the MCA, which crowded people
cross-legged into the aisles.
Moving his talents forward into an even more dramatic realm, he has written
and produced two stage plays: Flea Market, a night of monologues, and A
House Party For Henry, an interactive play, and co-wrote, produced, and
performed in the Zeitgeist Theater’s The Psychic Café. He is on the Artistic
Board of several Chicago based performing arts companies and is currently
collaborating several performing arts projects including Sandburg to Smith,
Petey’s Bridgeport, and Tap Dance Stud.