Urban Word NYC ignited the youth spoken word and poetry scene in New York City when it was established in partnership with Teachers & Writers Collaborative in 1999. Since then, Urban Word NYC has provided thousands of New York City teenagers with free, safe, ongoing, and uncensored writing and performance opportunities.
We believe teenagers can and must speak for themselves and the key to building self-confidence, honing critical thinking skills, and developing imaginative and honest writing is to honor what they say and feel.

Urban Word NYC is a community committed to providing dynamic programming dedicated to the critical issues of today’s youth. QQ&A (Queer Questioning & Allies) creates a safe space where those who identify as LGBTSTQ, and their allies, can safely and creatively respond to issues affecting their communities through spoken word poetry and performance. New Skool Journalism offers ethnographic exploration of NYC's diverse neighborhoods where students learn to infuse spoken word and alternative writing forms with journalistic methods and have the opportunity to get published in the alternative news weekly, the Brooklyn Rail. Women Reborn through Music, Media and Culture uses critical artistic inquiry to uncover the woman’s contribution to these media and our world. Art & Social Justice workshops create effective ways to incite, inform and ignite positive social change.

Led by two adult mentors and one youth mentor, workshops are student-centered environments where young writers can experiment, explore, and eventually explode their work in performance. In ten to twelve sessions, youth explore the written and oral traditions of poetry, rap and hip-hop forms, song lyrics, writing and political/social change, and more. Every workshop is a place to get feedback and new ideas, and provides a real, diverse, and supportive community of young writer/performers.

Urban Word NYC is a community committed to reciprocal teaching and learning. Every workshop series is closely observed and assessed to ensure success. Mentors participate in bi-annual trainings and bi-weekly mentor meetings to discuss the progress of our students. They contribute teaching journals and self-evaluations at the end of each term.

 

 

 
 

Urban Word NYC is a community committed to youth leadership. Each year, a group of 10 committed Urban Word NYC poets act in service of their peers as part of our youth board, Word Wide. They envision, advise, and implement projects that reach out to other youth around the city. Members visit public schools, community centers, poetry festivals, homeless shelters, train stations, and juvenile detention facilities. There they kick poems, run writing exercises, promote Urban Word NYC’s free resources and prove to adults and youth alike that spoken word poetry has artistic and educative value — and is anything but boring.

See our “Calendar” section for a complete list of free workshops that we are currently offering. Check the “Urban Word at your school” section to see how we can bring these dynamic workshops to your site.

 

Michael Cirelli is the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, a grassroots non-profit organization that provides free, safe, uncensored and ongoing writing and performance opportunities for NYC teens. He is also the director of the Annual Spoken Word & Hip-Hop Teacher & Community Leader Training Institute at the University of Wisconsin that won the 2007 North American Association of Summer Sessions "Creative and Innovative Program Award." He was the co-presenter of the 4th Annual Hip-Hop Education Summit in NYC, and has been a lead presenter/facilitator at hip-hop and education summits in Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland and Washington D.C. He also teaches a course on hip-hop and literature at the College of New Rochelle, and through Independent Learning at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

His first full-length collection of poetry, Lobster with Ol' Dirty Bastard, will be published in the spring of 2008 by Hanging Loose Press. He is the co-author of the award-winning curriculum, Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics (Milk Mug 2004), a standards-based curriculum that explores the relationship between hip-hop lyrics and "classic" poems. He is currently working on two other curricula utilizing hip-hop to engage students. He was featured on season 5 of Russell Simmons Def Poetry.

He has his MFA in poetry from the New School, and attended the Columbia School of Business, Institute for Nonprofit Management. He can be reached at michael@urbanwordnyc.org or 212.352.3495.

  

 

Parker Pracjek is an educator, arts administrator and performing artist. She currently works as Program Director at Urban Word NYC. She holds a BA in Theatre and an MA in Performance Studies from NYU. She has taught writing at numerous Colleges and GED programs throughout the New York City. In addition to teaching and working in arts education, Parker is a writer, dance-theatre artist, as well as a puppet and maskmaker. Parker manages our off-site workshop program and can be reached at parker@urbanwordnyc.org or 212.352.3495.

  

 

Shaun Redwood is the Program Coordinator of Urban Word NYC. He is a poet/hip-hop artist who has been involved with the organization since 2000, including being a two-time Urban Word NYC Teen Poetry Slam finalist. After discovering writing in high school, he has gone on to perform at the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, as well as hold three successful performances at the world famous Apollo Studio Theatre in Harlem. He has also composed a one man spoken word show entitled He Speaks So Well under the direction of Kashi Johnson for the Say Word! Hip-Hop Theatre Festival in Pennsylvania. Redwood's writing has been featured in several publications and online media outlets, and his performance has been aired in national commercial spots for MTV Networks and others. Shaun Redwood currently manages our Manhattan workshop series, site visit program, newsletter, and performs at events. He can be reached at shaun@urbanwordnyc.org or 212.352.3495

  

 

Tahani Salah is the Youth Outreach Coordinator for Urban Word NYC. She was a member of the 2006 Urban Word Teen Poetry Slam Team, and has been involved with the organization for the past four years. Tahani is currently a member of the Nuyorican Slam Team, the head of our Word Wide Youth Leadership Board and author of the forthcoming work Respect The Mic. She can be reached at tahani@urbanwordnyc.org or 212.352.3495.

  

 

Urban Word NYC Founder Jen Weiss has worked with and mentored teenagers for the past seven years. She began her career in non-profit literary/literacy arts for youth in San Francisco. In 1999, she established Urban Word NYC. She is a graduate of Columbia's Institute for Non-Profit Management (2001) and is the co-author of Brave New Voices: Youth Speaks Guide to Teaching Spoken Word Poetry (2001, Heinemann). Outside of her responsibilities with Urban Word, she is a youth advocate and proponent of youth-involved, after-school arts education. As such, she consults regularly with teachers, after-school educators, and youth arts organizations, and has spoken on these subjects at conferences. She attends the CUNY Graduate Center's Urban Education, Ph.D. program.