Poetry Dynamo, Humorist, Storyteller, Spoken Word Slam Producer
Artist Statement
I am a poet informed by my identity as a Filipino American & openly queer artist, affected by the marginalization of those communities and the disenfranchised voices in mainstream American art. I believe that spoken word poetry is a unique American art form like jazz, that blends theater & literature. I am a poet who promotes spoken word art culture & who believes that poetry & the sharing of one’s poetry on the stage is a political act. Like poet & activist Audre Lorde stated, I believe that poetry is not a luxury. In the art of the poetry slam, we have our political theater. I strive to push my poetry & performance with comedy and danger, driving them to the gleeful edge, turning emotions on a dime.
Artist Bio
Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and later taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. His television credits include 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, NPR’s Snap Judgement & MTV’s Free Your Mind. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Mr. Cabico received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital. As a theater artist, he received three New York Innovative Theater Award Nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind with a win for Best Performance Art Production The Kenyon Review recently named Regie Cabico the “Lady Gaga of Poetry” and he has been listed in BUST magazine’s 100 Men We Love. He has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and through Howard Zinn’s Portraits Project at NYU, has performed with Stanley Tucci, Jesse Eisenberg & Lupe Fiasco.
Program Description
Regie Cabico is a prioneer of slam poetry, having won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam & later taking top prizes in 3 National Poetry Slams. His work is informed by his Filipino and Queer Identity. The Poetry Slam is the competitive art of perofrmance poetry, where poets perfom original work without costumes, music or props. The result is solo political theater. Mr. Cabico recieved accolades from Poets & Writers for his work teaching youth at Bellevue Hospital. He is one of the few teaching artists who incorporates improvisation and poetry in his pedagogy.
Here is a list of literary arts organizations that Mr. Cabico has worked with as an educator:
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Virginia Commission for the Arts Teaching Artist Roster
DC Commission for the Arts Poetry Out Loud
Urban Word New York City
Banff Arts Center
Kundiman
New York University Asian Pacific American Studies Artist in Residence
Quotes
Cabico spins a yarn so captivating he could be reading from the phone book and the audience would listen. Cabico totes the line between poetry, stand-up comedy, and storytelling, and the piece moves seamlessly between the three genres. The transitions occur just as a modern attention span might be tempted to wane; succeeding in keeping the audience engrossed.
– DC METRO THEATER ARTS
As an educator of twenty years I can say with great confidence that my collaboration with Regie Cabico has been inspiring, informative and transformative to my students and to the drama program at Gunston Middle School. Middle school drama is about creating collaborative teams, learning to express oneself and find a voice that can both be heard and is truthful. Ms. Cabico’s work with poetry , both in recitation and in creation, provides a framework and an environment for students to find their true voice. Mr. Cabico is also an excellent diagnostician. He has a keen eye on identifying areas that groups need to strengthen in order to collaborate more effectively and efficiently. As a team we are able to observe how different groups naturally work together and then design ways to increase and improve their abilities to collaborate. This work is much better done with a partner rather than in isolation. Mr. Cabico’s ability to teach elements of performance while inspiring students to write poetry is profound. As a professional performance artist, Regie understands and exemplifies what it means to capture an audience’s attention. He articulates these qualities clearly and demonstrates them every day. Regie’s structure for teaching poetry outloud is clear and accessible. He opens with a short poem that allows all students to feel successful. We then move into poem selection and spend time understanding the meaning and feeling in each poem. Finally however the most important contribution that Regie provides us is his knowledge, commitment and passion for poetry slam. Poetry slam in middle school is one of the only opportunities students have to create an authentic performance piece that seeks to share their own individual truth. The work is powerful and important and Regie Cabico is masterful in his work with kids.
– Caitlin Wittig, Drama Teacher, Gunston Middle School,
And that may be one of the things I love most about Regie’s work: in a genre that is so often (and rightly so) directed at a “target” within the culture— racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny—Regie is also able to turn his critical eye upon the genre itself, and in so doing, Regie’s helps insure that the genre of spoken word poetry resists “orthodoxy,” resists becoming self-righteous, resists becoming merely programmatic. I recognized this aspect of self-awareness almost 20 years ago, when I first met Regie at Bucknell University, where I was then a visiting poet who had invited Regie to perform and teach a class in slam poetics. In all honesty, my students at Bucknell were smart but pretty buttoned down—and I wanted Regie there to help knock the self-consciousness off student body. His class in slam poetics demonstrated that he had a tremendous perspective upon slam poetry as a genre and where it fit within contemporary poetry. His visit was a huge success, and it inaugurated a yearly poetry slam that continued long after I had left Bucknell. Regie did much more than that, of course—and this is also part of his gift as a human being—to give more than what anyone ever expects. And when I became the poetry editor of Scoundrel Time, Regie was one of the first writers I approached for work. Not only did he offer us his work, he offered to emcee readings in D.C. Let me end on this note. The natural mode of generosity that one finds in Regie Cabico, the person, is also what one finds in Regie the artist, and what one finds in all great artists of any age. I really mean this! For me, Regie is a difference-maker, a natural-born performer, teacher, and writer.
– Mark Svenvold, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, Seton Hall University
https://vimeo.com/10398158
http://upr.org/post/regie-cabico-brings-queer-slam-poetry-moab