Teaching Spoken Word in the Classroom

Alina Borger has spent over 20 years in the classroom, and currently teaches creative writing, research, and English literature at City High School in Iowa City, Iowa. She is the author of Tuesday's Children (Hermeneutic Chaos Press), and she holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her other work has appeared in The Cider Press Review, Black Fox Literary, The Mom Egg Review, Stirring, and Rabbit, among others. Visit her online at www.alinaborger.com or on Instagram @sweetandarch.

Stephen Voyce is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa, where he also holds appointments in the Digital Studio for the Public Arts & Humanities and the Center for the Book. He is the author of Poetic Community: Avant-Garde Activism and Cold War Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2013), the editor of bpNichol’s a book of variations: love – zygal – art facts (Coach House Books, 2013), and the Director of the Fluxus Digital Collection. His work also appears in journals such as Modernism/modernity, Criticism, Postmodern Culture, and Open Letter. Voyce is currently at work on a book about twenty-first century representations of war and national security.

Jalesha Johnson is a spoken word poet, teaching artist, activist, and author who has dedicated their life to using art as a means to make information accessible, advocate for people of marginalized identities, and do the most radical act of all – love. They have dedicated their life to shifting the culture of safety in their city through their work as Co-director of SAY poetry, and an organizer with the Des Moines Black Liberation Movement. Jalesha is Black, fat, femme, queer, and kind. They spend their time dreaming and demanding this world to be a better place. 

Originally from Michigan, Lisa Roberts has taught literature and composition in Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Charlottesville, and Lincoln, Nebraska. After moving to Iowa City, she worked as Assistant Director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project to bring free creative writing workshops to children and teens. Today she serves as Director of Iowa City Poetry, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to redistributing poetry resources with writers of all ages, incomes, identities, and experience levels. In this role, she co-produces The Free Generative Writing Workshops, IC Speaks Slam Team, Iowa City Poetry Al Fresco, Write at the Stanley, and Mic Check Poetry Fest. Her poetry has been published in Plainsongs, The Untidy Season, Little Village, Backchannels Journal, PromptPress, and she has been a featured spoken word performer at various venues, including Voice Box, Was the Word, NewBo PoJam, and Poetry in Motion.