The 2024 Mic Check Poetry Fest, billed as a two-day celebration of spoken word and its power to bear witness, create community and inspire change, kicks off Friday night with a showcase featuring some of the biggest names in the spoken word landscape. Little Village talked with festival organizers Caleb Rainey (recent Iowa Authors Award recipient) and Lisa Roberts about the festival, its history and how joining a community through poetry can create a room of used-to-be strangers.
This is the fourth Mic Check Poetry Fest since 2021, how would you say it’s grown in the last few years?
Lisa Roberts: Word has gotten out so we now have guests driving to join us from Des Moines, Ames, Davenport and elsewhere. That’s a beautiful development. We expect to double our attendance from last year. And it’s now far bigger than a two person job so we’ve teamed up with wonderfully supportive partners like Hancher Auditorium and The Tuesday Agency, as well as fantastic volunteers from the Iowa City writing community. In this City of Lit, it’s been so encouraging to see support grow for this beautiful art form that’s a hybrid of the page and stage.
Caleb Rainey: Mic Check has grown in attendance and notoriety over the last four years, but I think the most satisfying thing to see is the growth in the writers who attend. This festival started with a few spoken word poets and a few writers who were curious, and now the festival caters to writers and artists from all experience levels who find something in the programming that pushes them forward — helps them grow.
Could you speak on the significance of Rudy Francisco to the poetry world and of his visit to Iowa City for this festival? What conversations do you have in picking your headline poets for the fest?
Rainey: When Lisa and I discuss headliners for the festival we ask ourselves a few important questions, but the biggest one is simple: “Who does our community need to hear?” Having Rudy Francisco as a headliner at Mic Check is monumental on a personal, professional and community level. When I was a 16-year-old kid trying to figure out what good poetry is and how my voice fits in with this craft, Rudy Francisco’s work was my lighthouse, my framework, my inspiration. I’ve studied him more than any other poet, living or dead.
On a professional level, I am an expert in the field of spoken word poetry now, and Rudy, in many respects, is the leader of this generation’s spoken word poetry. Within the community, when I asked all of my students which poet they would like to see at Mic Check, the vast majority of them said Rudy Francisco. Now that we have him headlining this year’s festival my students tell me this a dream come true. Many of my writing peers throughout all of Iowa tell me that Rudy is the reason they started writing poetry.
I love that you both emphasize the community aspect of the festival, rather than it just being a series of performances. Can you speak a bit on how you encourage community connections through the two days of the fest? What are some workshops you are particularly looking forward to?
Roberts: The variety of artists we spotlight tends to do something really cool. It attracts fest-goers from very different backgrounds and age groups. So what we find is that people who might not regularly commune together do so in the time they spend mingling before performances, workshops and slams, during those events and then in the time they spend afterward mingling to take pictures and get books signed. Right now some political forces seem determined to tell us how different we all are and to make us afraid of each other. I adore how Mic Check audiences get bound together by joyful art that celebrates our deep common humanity.
For workshops, I’m excited for Iowans to sit in a smallish room with Rudy Francisco and to write with him and learn from him. Rudy Francisco’s adult workshop, “No Gravity through Figurative Language,” promises to give attendees insights into his trademark technique of lift off through metaphor. You know, that process where discovering the right metaphors for our earthbound hurts can transform those experiences, can help us float, fly and transcend. Nobody does that better than Rudy!
I’m also excited for teen writers to take Outspoken Bean’s workshop. As coach of Meta4 Houston, he’s led his youth slam team to first place at Brave New Voices for two years in a row! So this is a rare chance to be inspired by someone clearly playing at the top of his game.
Rainey: Mic Check encourages community by inviting all attendees to take space and share their thoughts with each other. Even during performances we encourage attendees to snap, clap, grunt and shout as a way to engage with the show — we lay the groundwork for community through the practice of reciprocal energy. Then we take that and amplify it in workshop spaces where writers are asked not only to digest new information but to engage with it together. There is something profoundly bounding when someone shares a first draft, written in the last 20 minutes, to a room full of used-to-be strangers. It is an in-real-time example of your community holding you.
Let’s say I’m someone completely new to experiencing live poetry, that is interested in coming to the fest. Is there anything you’d suggest I could look into, read, and/or beware of before making the jump of attending?
Rainey: Great question! The beautiful thing about live poetry performances is that they are designed to be welcoming — they want everyone to be there. Also, when going to a live event prepare to be in a space that is energetic, authentic, and full of sound — there are a lot of snaps, claps and grunts!
Roberts: Watch a few performance videos online. Get on YouTube and search Rudy Francisco’s “Hide and Seek” or Kelsey Bigelow’s “Learned Instinct” or Caleb Rainey’s “What You Need to Hear.” I think you’ll find that performance poems cut to the heart of difficult truths by using language that inspires wonder. And they cut into our hearts by making us feel deep empathy and joy. For me, there’s just nothing else like it. To watch powerful performance poets dare to become so vulnerable as they turn their pain into art, to watch healing through the magic of words and to take personal strength from it for my own healing.
What hopes/goals/aspirations do you have for the future of Mic Check Poetry Fest?
Roberts: We aim to turn Mic Check Poetry Fest into the premiere spoken word festival in the Midwest. More performances. More workshops. More recognition of slam poetry’s fascinating history and stunning growth. More discussions of its place in our current and future literary landscape.
