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 […]
Spoken Word
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Iowa City’s Mic Check Poetry Festival to return with a slam in November after ‘phenomenal’ 2021 turnout
Iowa City Poetry’s Mic Check Poetry Festival will return Nov. 11-12 after organizers Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey and Lisa Roberts received what Rainey called a “phenomenal showing” of support and enthusiasm last year. The November festival will be only two days this year instead of three, but it will include expanded offerings and an […]
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Young spoken-word poets express ‘heartache and joy’ on the Englert stage for the IC Speaks showcase
Stage lights cast a blue hue on a lone mic as attendants trickled into the Englert Theatre to see the IC Speaks Showcase on Saturday night. About a dozen students from West, City, Liberty and Tate high schools filled the first two rows on the theater’s west side. In the hour and a half that followed, the students got up one by one to stand at
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The Negro Artist and making space for black voices in Iowa
Caleb Rainey, aka the Negro Artist, came to Iowa City to earn an English major at the University of Iowa. Rainey was one of only 57 black men, in his undergraduate class of over 4,000 first-year students, who were not part of a Hawkeye sports team.
