January 17th, 2005: Taylor Mali

Teacher and performance poet Taylor Mali is the most successful poetry slam strategist of all time, having lead six of his seven national poetry slam teams to the finals stage and winning the championship itself a record four times before anyone had even tied him at three. A native of New York City, Mali is the recently elected president of Poetry Slam, Inc. and was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry." He has performed and lectured for audiences all over the world.

Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film "SlamNation," which chronicled the National Poetry Slam Championship of 1996, the year of his first national championship, features Taylor Mali as the "golden-tongued, Armani clad villain." In a review of the film, The New York Times calls Taylor Mali "a ranting comic showman and literary provocateur." Mali can also be heard sparring with Marc Smith, the founder of the slam, on the audio commentary track of the soon-to-be-released DVD of the film.

A vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, Mali himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop "Teacher! Teacher!" a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best one-man show at the 2001 U. S. Comedy Arts Festival.

Every August, Taylor Mali performs for the 50 Teachers-of-the-Year at NASA's Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. In November of 2004, and again in January of 2005, he will address international conferences of teachers in Europe. The spokesman for teaching's nobility, the poet laureate of passion in the classroom, Taylor Mali wants to create 1,000 new teachers by the year 2006.

These days Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing commercial voiceover work. The narrator of several books on tape, including "The Great Fire" (for which he won the Golden Earphones Award for children's narration), Mali is also the author of several books and cds of original poetry and spoken word.

A seventh-generation Manhattanite born on March 28th, 1965, Taylor was named after his great-great-grandfather John Taylor Johnston, founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1800s. He went to Bowdoin College in Maine; drama school at Oxford University in England; and graduate school at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. He has a dog named Apollo, looks like a Republican, writes every day, practices yoga, and looks forward to returning to the classroom some day soon.Teacher and performance poet Taylor Mali is the most successful poetry slam strategist of all time, having lead six of his seven national poetry slam teams to the finals stage and winning the championship itself a record four times before anyone had even tied him at three. A native of New York City, Mali is the recently elected president of Poetry Slam, Inc. and was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry." He has performed and lectured for audiences all over the world.

Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film "SlamNation," which chronicled the National Poetry Slam Championship of 1996, the year of his first national championship, features Taylor Mali as the "golden-tongued

MISSION STATEMENT

"I want to reform education in America from top to bottom. I want to be the individual responsible for making an entire generation of college graduates consider teaching before business or law school. I want to make it easier for smart, successful, and qualified people in their 30s and older to become teachers as well. I want to get America ready for an Education Tax if that's what it's going to take. But most of all, I want to be the spokesman for teaching¹s nobility, the poet laureate of passion in the classroom."

INTRODUCTION CUE CARD

" Our featured reader tonight, New York performance poet Taylor Mali, measures his life in a variety of different ways: He has one dog and three years of experience as a professional spoken word artist; one book, three cds; two cancelled passports; he was a national poetry slam champion four times; twice he appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam; for nine years he taught college, high school, and middle school; he once scored 581 in a single SCRABBLE game; and MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, after hearing his work, 32 people have told him they will now become teachers. Please help me welcome the man who wants to create one thousand new teachers by the year 2006, Taylor Mali."