photo by Sarah Grant

Check out the podcast of last week's show featuring JEFFREY ETHAN LEE.

umüvme features JEFFREY ETHAN LEE.  Lee's poetry book, identity papers, was a 2006 Colorado Book Award finalist [http://identitypapers.org]. His first poetry book, invisible sister, at http://mmmpress.org/ was a finalist for the first MMM Press poetry prize. Lee won the 2002 Sow's Ear Poetry Chapbook prize for The Sylf (2003), created identity papers for Drimala Records, published Strangers in a Homeland (chapbook with Ashland Poetry Press, 2001), and published hundreds of poems, stories and essays in North American Review, Xconnect, Crab Orchard Review, Crazyhorse, Many Mountains Moving, Crosscurrents, American Poetry Review, Green Mountain Review, Washington Square. With a Ph.D. in British Romanticism and an MFA from NYU, he teaches creative writing at West Chester University.

Check out the podcast of last week's interview with CURTIS L. CRISLER.

CURTIS L. CRISLER is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at IPFW.  His poetry book Pulling Scabs will be released in 2009 by Aquarius Press.  In 2009, Leaving Me Behind: Writing a new me, a nonfiction book addressing the six week Summer Bridge experience at IPFW was released, which Crisler co-wrote with his 2008 Summer Bridge Students.  In 2008, Spill won the 2008 Keyhole Chapbook Award.  His poetry book Tough Boy Sonatas was published in 2007, and is also on Recorded Books.  Crisler’s Tough Boy Sonatas was a 2009 recipient of The Eric Hoffer Award. Crisler is also a Cave Canem Fellow. 

Check out the podcast of last week's show featuring TODD STEVENS.

umüvme features poet TODD B. STEVENS. Stevens is currently an MFA student at Rosemont College. He has studied English at Cornell and Villanova. Todd worked for three years as a rare book dealer, and for three years at Borders Books, where he currently is a community outreach and event coordinator for a busy suburban store. His poetry has recently been published in Mad Poets Review and Off the Coast.

Check out the podcast of last week's show featuring TREASURE WILLIAMS.

umüvme features guest poet TREASURE WILLIAMS.  A native of Meridian, Mississippi, Williams is an East St. Louis, Illinois based poet, performer and educator.  She is a regional editor of the Drumvoices Revue and a Cave Canem fellow.  Her performance abilities have been showcased on various projects, most recently on American Public Media's Weekend America, and Turner South’s “My South Speaks“ television commercial.  She works full-time for Southwestern Illinois College as an Assistant Professor of English and has received an MFA from the University of Memphis’s creative writing program.

Check the podcast of last week's show featuring TARA BETTS.

umuvme's season 2 jumps off tuesday night with an interview & reading with featured poet TARA BETTS:

Tara Betts is the author of Arc and Hue.  She appeared on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam" and Jessica Care Moore's "SPOKEN."  Tara is a Cave Canem fellow and a graduate of the New England MFA Program.  Her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals such as Ninth Letter, Callaloo, Hanging Loose, Gathering Ground, Bum Rush the Page, and both Spoken Word Revolution anthologies.  She currently teaches at Rutgers University and leads community-based workshops.  For more information, visit www.tarabetts.net.

Join us this Tuesday evenin'

          for a brand-new season

                         of umüvme. 

                                    Brew a cup of tea,

                                                step into our poetry parlor,

                                                            steep yourself in mixed metaphor,

                                                                        & eavesdrop on our vignettes

                                                                                  with lyrical luminary, Tara Betts. . .

Tonight on umüvme, we are featuring tracks from the CD Hip Hop Speaks to Children, which accompanies an anthology that "highlights the use of rhythm and vernacular in hip-hop, rap, and African-American poetry."  Featured artists range from Langston Hughes to Kanye West, from Eloise Greenfield to Queen Latifah.  The anthology is edited by poet Nikki Giovanni.

After tonight's episode, our live show will be on a bit of a hiatus, as your hosts welcome a new life into the world!  We'll be running reruns of the show for the next couple of weeks, so catch up on what you missed during the summer.  Or check out our podcast of featured poet interviews and readings at umuvme.mypodcast.com.

FEATURED POET:  NYCE THE POET

Nyce is our featured guest on tonight's umüvme.  She is dropping a poetry CD in mid-October:

"Ever since I was a young girl I've had a natural sense of creativity. I've been writing since the late 70's. I've always had an affinity to creative arts and live entertainment. I started having children at the young age of 17. I moved from the suburbs to the city of Philadelphia, and for that reason, I began to encourage my children to discover their talents, to keep them out of trouble and off the streets. My family then started have our own shows for birthday parties and at local Rec centers. I overcame many challenges as a single parent of 8 children, and this motivated me to take it a step further, and I began to inspire others with my story My Thoughts, my poetry."

Tune in at 9PM for the LIVE show or check out the podcast at www.umuvme.mypodcast.com.  Got somethin to say?  Call us in the studio during the show at 215.609.4301.