Prov Slam and Open Mic at Imago

Especially geared to high school age students who live in the East Bay, their families, friends and the public, ProvSlam’s youth-oriented spoken word performance will be followed by an open mic hosted by Slam performers open to the audience. Admission is free for high school students. Suggested donation for adults is $5, but no one will be turned away.

The Prov Slam performers will include Michelle Pouliot, Astrid Drew, and Devin Samuels.

Pouliot is a poet, student, and math tutor from Rhode Island. She represented the Providence Poetry Slam at the 2015 Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam and has touched stages across the northeast. You can find her in the library, at school, or panic writing in the corner moments before she’s called up to read the poem.

Drew is a writer and archivist based in Providence, Rhode Island. She has been part of the staff of the Providence Poetry Slam for many years and was a member of the 2014 Providence Slam team. She believes that poetry can be something powerful.

Samuels has been an arts educator teaching and performing poetry nationally for the past 15 years. With a strong investment in community, Devin Samuels has spent years cultivating youth and adult arts education spaces. His pedagogy utilizes poetics and the radical imagination to grow critical thinking, self-reflection, and empathy as primary drivers of social change.

Devin is a 2017 Poetry Foundation Incubator Fellow and his work can be found in City & Sea Poetry Anthology, Slag Review, Wayne Literary Review 2018 and Systemic Crises of Global Climate Change: Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. Samuels currently serves on the board of Detroit Jews for Justice, is the Co-Director of the Providence Poetry Slam, and an active member of multiple movement and arts organizations.

Founded in the early 1990s, ProvSlam is one of the oldest and most respected poetry venues in the country, known for its quality, unique work, and strong community. Based at AS220 in downtown Providence, ProvSlam hosts regular performances and workshops while also cultivating a robust youth program.

The ProvSlam performance is the first of three upcoming events IFA is hosting at Imago to showcase young poets from across Rhode Island with special focus on supporting youth poets in the East Bay. IFA’s “Giving Voice: In Celebration of Youth Poets” program also includes a youth poetry workshop led by Rhode Island Poet Laureate Tina Cane on April 8 and a youth poetry reading by workshop participants from 2 – 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 30.