2025 Slam Season

Marcus Stokes is the 2025 Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Champion! In a year full of ups and downs, twists and turns, and everything in between; Marcus has managed to overcome all obstacles and climb his way to the top of NYC’s Slam ladder!

If you missed out on Marcus’s ascension, here are a few details; Marcus performed both old and new pieces, all of which demonstrate his tried and true poetic style of pointing out accepted inconsistencies and hypocrisies we accept as normal in our society. Add in his signature assertive and rhythmic diction, which masterfully entrances the crowd with wordplay and double entendre, and you’ll be left cheering him on just as the crowd did on December 26th!

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is so glad to be a part of Marcus’s journey as he achieves his artistic dreams and we look forward to seeing him kill it as a member of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe National Slam Team! We send a heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS to our new Grand Slam Champion! You’ve officially entered the realm of legends! Now the sky is the limit!

Get in the know about the 2025 Nuyorican Grand Slam by checking out his IG @_marcus_stokes !

Whether it’s off-site or online, the Final Friday Slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe has been hitting! In the final slam prior to this year’s GRAND SLAM, Yex put on a hell of a show! Her victory wasn’t easily secured, but after a tie in the final round, Yex pulled ahead and placed herself amongst 2025’s Final Friday Slam Champions. 

Yex’s work beautifully highlights her life as a mother, a samaritan invested in giving back, and her tough upbringing in marginalized communities. Despite many hardships, her poetry centers around the fact that she’s never been beaten down or forced to make concessions on her morals by difficult circumstances. Just as she did during November’s Final Friday Slam, Yex rose to the occasion and overcame all obstacles on the way to the top! 

We want to give every shout out to @yass_yex for her amazing performances at this month’s slam, and hope to see her at future Nuyorican Poets Cafe events. Give her a follow and congratulate her for her amazing talent!

Yex did her thing and achieved an awesome victory at this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam! Her work both essentializes the beauty of femininity and speaks truth to power to fight back against archaic stereotypes that constantly drag down the efforts of womxn all over the world. Using language that is both comforting and humorous, Yex was able to connect with our Nuyorican Bowery Slam crowd and show them the faults inherent in the use of the word “pussy” as a descriptor of someone who is weak. 

We at the Nuyorican want to see more womxn feel safe entering and performing within the spoken word scene, and this Monday, Yex did just that! At heart we’re all lovers of poetry, and we all want to connect with the amazing community of artists the Nuyorican brings together. We give Yex all the kudos and congratulations in the world! If you want to continue to support Yex, follow her on instagram @yass_yex today!

Shoutout to Raad Syed for winning this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam! In a tightly contested first round, Raad had the crowd into a frenzy with some brand new work, following it up with a perfect 30 in the second round to secure his third Bowery Slam win this year! With this win, he officially locks in his invitation to the 2025 Nuyorican Poets Cafe GRAND SLAM!

Raad’s poetry is characterized by his sharp wordplay, intimate storytelling, and electric performances—please check out his page @raadsharrar on IG to see more of his work and upcoming performances!

A new competitor enters the running for the Nuyorican GRAND SLAM as the finish line approaches! Scoop the Prophet’s groundbreaking work centers around the stigma and psychological underpinnings of manhood and life as a person of color in the modern age. His definitive, ‘no room for second guesses’ style turns his philosophical observations into inarguable axioms that move audiences! 

His unique combination of novel linguistic elements makes Scoop the Prophet an extremely talented contender as the climax of 2025’s Slam Season approaches, and thoroughly ‘mixes up the pot!’ Not only our viewers, but all of our GRAND SLAM hopefuls should take note of Scoop’s ascension, and there’s no better way to do so than to follow him on Instagram @ScooptheProphet !

Kaleo has officially done it! They have been steadily improving their brand of spoken word and have secured a hard won victory at our weekly slam! While we enjoy seeing amazing poets show their prodigious skills and become part of our community, seeing newer poets find their own style, tone, and tempo is just as enjoyable for us at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe! 

Cultural identity lies at the heart of the Nuyorican movement. Listening to the work of a poet whose work focuses mainly on their own experience as a native person resonates very deeply with our goals, and it is for this reason that we are especially glad to see Kaleo in the winner’s circle this week! Please show some love to their IG and give them a follow at @kaleokauhola to follow this amazing poet as they grow more and more on their poetic journey! Thanks again Kaleo!

Once again, HISTORY WAS MADE during our Halloween Anniversary Slam! Court has been working extremely hard to qualify for this year’s Grand Slam Championship and she has cinched her qualification last minute in a series of unlikely, serendipitous events! Despite showing up and trying her hardest, the judges didn’t provide Court with scores high enough to be invited to our Final Friday Slam this month. Still, she applied to perform as a competitor through our lottery and was selected in the raffle by the smallest margin. The spot really could have gone to anyone, but Court saw her chance and made the best of her opportunity, taking her lottery slot all the way to the finals and beyond!

Court’s work resonates most deeply with other slam poets due to her experiences and devotion to the scene. Her poems about mixing business and pleasure and domestic violence impacts us in ways that not many other poets can. Ultimately, we are both proud and glad to have a talent like Court investing her effort at our events and we hope you’ll follow her @through.cs.lens to see her journey to the top!

WOW! Avé Maria’s spoken word this Monday was hittin! Her work has always been at the forefront of NYC’s poetic talents, but it seems her recent practice and efforts within the scene have brought her art to the next level. Our Nuyorican Bowery Slam crowd resonated with her every utterance, and she was able to take the chip despite the increasingly competitive level of our participants as everyone attempts to qualify for the 2025 Grand Slam. Best of all, it seemed Avé Maria was having a blast and managing to enjoy the slam just as much as any other attendee no matter the pressures of crunch time! 

We pray we see Avé Maria at our other events this year as she places amongst competitors hoping to qualify for the Grand Slam! If you’re looking to support Avé Maria or keep up with her artistic endeavors please follow her @author.avemaria !

Marcus Stokes is back and better than ever! The crowds adore his particular flow and the subject matter of his work, and when he brings these skills to any poetry event, he’s bound to shake things up! We are so proud and glad to have been able to host him at our Nuyorican Bowery Slam this week, and we look forward to seeing him attend future events on his path to qualifying for the 2025 Nuyorican Grand Slam!

Don’t forget to go check out some of Marcus’ other movements in the poetry scene by following him on IG @_marcus_stokes and shower him with the love and support he deserves.

Kai is back in the winner’s circle! It’s no surprise to any Nuyorican Bowery Slam regulars to witness a virtuosic performance and win from Kai, who lit up the stage this past Monday with a mix of new and time-tested material, electrifying the audience with their unmatched delivery and vivid depictions of both personal and universal truths. With a perfect score in the second round, Kai secured their fourth Bowery Slam win of the year!

We are so grateful to be able to experience Kai’s wizardry at Nuyorican slams—Kai’s poetry and performance are truly breathtaking. To learn more about Kai’s work, please visit their Instagram page @kaidgpoet !

Shouts out to Raad for his amazing showing at this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam! Raad is a master of taking known paradigms about animals, Disney princesses, anything; and making a series of double entendres that hit harder with every new inclusion of a term. This week he even went so far as to perform some new sh*t about stereotypes of different species of bears, during a competition that was just as strong as any national slam, and still found a way to achieve victory!

We love to see Raad at our events because he isn’t just a naturally talented poet on par with any other slammer, but he’s also willing to take smart risks during competitions that adds a layer of drama to our slams and makes them even more exciting. As always, we are deeply proud of Raad for this week’s victory, If you’re interested in following up on Raad’s other pastimes, check him out at @raadsharrar and give him a follow!

Ten is back! Despite facing some strong competition throughout the night, he scored a perfect 30 in the second round to overtake the first place spot. With the win on the line, Ten unleashed one of his signature poems, wowing the crowd with his unmatched musical cadences and perceptive subject matter, even freestyling certain portions of the piece. With the audience on the edge of their seats, Ten stayed true to his name, receiving three tens and the only perfect score of the night!

We are blessed to be able to enjoy the work of an elite poet like Ten, who delivers an incredible performance every time he steps onto the stage. To learn more about his poetry, follow him on IG @fireline888 !

Lyrical Faith has done it! After three of the closest head-to-head matches we’ve ever seen, Lyrical Faith came out on top of 8 other amazingly talented poets with the highest score and won! Works she performed explored the role women of color have played in reproductive health and the relationship between food and abuse in many households. She truly opened the eyes of our Final Friday crowd and brought them to a standing ovation more than once. We are so glad Lyrical Faith was able to attend and compete in our September Final Friday Slam and hope that you’ll follow her @lyricalfaithpoetry !

Jayden’s got another Nuyorican Bowery Slam win under his belt! Despite focusing on his studies in college, Jayden shows that he’s still interested in qualifying and even winning our 2025 Nuyorican Grand Slam through his repeated attendance at nearly every single one of our slams. Also, his work serves as a mix of erudite observation and masterful allegory, which resonates really well with our Nuyorican Bowery Slam crowd! 

Finding time to write and pursue poetry while attempting to succeed in your professional career is a bridge too far for even the most seasoned of artists, but Jayden is managing the task flawlessly! We hope he keeps up his upward trajectory to better and greater achievements! If you want to know more about Jayden, follow him on IG @jaydenantwine

Ethan Kim is back from a hiatus from slam poetry and just like old times he’s secured a Nuyorican Bowery Slam win! He performed some ‘new sh*t’ and some time-tested hits to finish with a high 59.9 overall score for the night!

As always, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe is so proud of every poet that competes! We believe they deserve to shine, so make sure to check out Ethan at @ethanjkim on Instagram to follow his multidisciplinary pursuits!

Court’s on a streak! Following last week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam win, Court came back and won another! Her repeat visits to our poetry competitions even after successive wins shows that Court is not only dedicated to the craft of spoken word poetry, but also is ensuring her performances are polished to the highest degree. This is probably because she has her eyes on a Final Friday Slam victory and possibly even competing in the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s 2025 Grand Slam! 

We are so glad to see Court blossoming into the poet we always thought she could be, and hope to see her at all our events in the future. If you’re interested in her work, check out her Instagram page @through.cs.lens !

WOW! Court has officially done it! After refining and perfecting her delivery, diction, and poetic tools, Court has secured a Nuyorican Bowery Slam win and not only gets a free ticket to our September Final Friday Slam, but also is taking her first steps on the path to nominating herself for our 2025 Grand Slam.

Court’s poetry revolves around issues that many other poets would shy away from discussing. She has done deep creative thinking on topics like romance and the interplay sex has with professional opportunities or career growth. Not only do her subjects stun the crowd, but the manner in which she engages with double-entendres and other forms of wordplay into her themes successively adds layers of meaning to her work. The result is an eye-opening and wonderfully enjoyable work of art about learning from the past, without all the pain of making the mistake!

We thank Court for her repeated attendance at our slams, and hope to see her often in the future! If you’re looking to learn more about her artistic endeavors, follow Court at @through.cs.lens to keep up to date with the waves she’s making in our community!

History has been made! Never before has a Final Friday Slam Winner displayed such a wealth of skill over his competition as to win TWO monthly slams in the same year! Marquis has done it, and for this reason he is at the top of the Grand Slam Nomination Standings! When poets achieve legendary feats such as this, they are remembered for it. Marquis will have his name echoed in the halls of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe for decades to come! 

Marquis’s work gives a tasteful post-modern take on the issues young men-of-color face, extending from social stigma to a new piece he performed, conveying struggles with alcoholism and sobriety. We at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe are so proud and excited to see this phenomenal young man grow into a master of his medium as his repertoire grows and becomes even more refined. Big things are coming for @im.marquis so you’d better give him a follow before you’re late to the party!

We proudly welcome Jayden back into our group of Nuyorican Bowery Slam winners for the month of August! If you don’t know Jayden, then you’re missing out on meeting one of the kindest, most passionate poets in the spoken word community. He’s commonly seen at poetry events using his classic typewriter to draft up new work while the iron of his inspiration is hot; and if not, he’s amongst the loudest in the crowd cheering for his fellow poets who also happen to be competing against him! 

We love everything about Jayden, especially the energy he brings both on and off the stage! Check out his page @jaydenantwine to stay up to date on what he will be embarking on next!

Marquis is back in the winner’s circle this week after an awesome and competitive Monday Slam! Marquis’s ability to mix modern critiques on social realities with highly poetic and creative spoken word makes him one of our best contenders for the 2025 Grand Slam! We hope that Marquis continues to show out at our events and make his already phenomenal art even better! Amongst the massive group of poets that come through to our Nuyorican Bowery Slams and try their hardest to win, Marquis continues to rank amidst the top, and he does it effortlessly! 

When a talented poet works hard to make their work better week after week, you can’t help but root for their success. The Nuyorican Poets Cafe wishes Marquis the best, and we hope that our audience will check out his Instagram @im.marquis

Shout out to our most recent Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winner E’Lee James! She has been showing up repeatedly to our slams in order to practice their awesome poetry and secure a Monday win so they can go on ascending our slam circuit. E’Lee James hasn’t forgotten the path to the Grand Slam is a long one, so she’s been making her poetry better and better every week and putting in her due diligence in order to give herself the chance to shine. And shine she has! 

We have a glowing opinion of E’Lee and her work, whether it’s her beautiful singing voice, or relatable spoken word that covers topics like bullying, colorism, and more! We give E’Lee James our best regards and if you’re hoping to see more of her, check out her IG @elee.james !

This week we are proud to welcome a new competitor into the illustrious conclave of Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winners! On Monday, Fahitza Quessa’s masterful display of spoken word earned her a ticket to our Final Friday Slam competition and a chance to begin her path to the 2025 Nuyorican Grand Slam! “This is your skin, the skin of your mother, grand and present,” stand out lines like this one about generational trauma resonated with the crowd and brought them to a rapturous ovation every time Fahitza stepped on and off the stage! 

We look forward to hosting Fahitza at our August 29th Final Friday Slam! If you want to learn more about this wonderful young poet, check out her IG @Fahitza.

We welcome Jayden back (for a third time!) to our illustrious group of Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winners for his success at this week’s slam! The scores were close all the way to the finish line, and nobody knew who would take the prize of the night, but Jayden soared to the top! His poem processing the realities of school shootings while transitioning between the roles of “student” and “teacher” resonates massively with young crowds. Add in his supremely confident and empathetic spoken word style, and you get the next poet to be invited to our Final Friday Slam! Give his IG @jaydenantwine a follow and check out some of the other events Jayden will feature in!

Shout out to our July Final Friday Slam Winner Kai! They’ve been showing up and polishing their poetry skills every single month at our Nuyorican Bowery Slams, and with their continued dedication it’s about time they got a Final Friday win! Kai even got a little strategic this month, saving some of their crowd favorite poems for the final slug-fest and introducing some new work in early rounds. It’s not easy to introduce new sh!t on the Final Friday Slam stage, and Kai not only managed to do so, but also won with the new work! 

We are so happy to invite them to the winner’s circle of Final Friday Slam Winners and are even more glad to see that they are currently ranked as the #2 spoken word poet in NYC. Moreover, Kai has also earned a nomination for this year’s Grand Slam! We are beyond grateful for @kaidgpoet and we hope to see them soon!

Raad Syed is back in the Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winner’s circle, and with his deep repertoire of poems, we hope that he’s here to stay! Raad secured the top score of the night near the end of the first round. After going first in the second round, he all but delivered the dagger to his opponents with a near perfect 59.7 total score!

His poems are a benchmark for the peak of modern spoken word poetry, and his usage of double entendre is so deep and varied that not only crowds, but fellow poets are left aghast at his ability with wordplay. Please check out @raadsharrar on IG to see his recent artistic adventures, and give him his deserved congratulations for his Monday win!

Kai is back in the winner’s circle with a vengeance, and we are so glad to have them here again! Their unique style of poetry is the most perfect balance of observations on the overwrought stigmas of society and a mix of tempo and wordplay that makes for a mindblowing performance every time they step up onto the stage. With their raw talent and tireless work ethic, we at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe truly believe that the sky is the limit for Kai!

They are the complete package when it comes to amazing performance poets, and we hope you’ll head over to their IG @kaidgpoet in order to give them the flowers they deserve!

After taking a week off from our Monday slams, our poets are back and seem to have doubled their efforts at perfecting their work! This weeks winner is Ali, who received some of the highest scores of the night despite tough but fair judging and a cast of competitors that made it look like anyone could win the night before the final scores were tallied!

As a talented multidisciplinary artist, Ali’s work with written word doesn’t just extend to poetry, but her amazing music, which incorporates her clever wordplay and thought-provoking themes into a beautiful mix of pop-and-rap. We look forward to seeing her more of her journey not just on our stages but everywhere! Follow her on Instagram at @imalwaysali to give her well deserved props and to keep up with her moves throughout the city!

WOW! This Month’s Final Friday Slam ended in a way no one could have anticipated! Raad Syed performed for the first time at our Nuyorican Bowery Slam just this past Monday, and now he’s our June Slam Champion! Talk about blazing a trail to the top! His MASTERFUL wordplay highlighting important points surrounding dehumanization, expectation, and imperialism brought him to the forefront of Nuyorican Poetry this month. He is ruthless in his usage of entendre to drag his point out to the center of the stage and he doesn’t let up until his themes become the most poignant and uniquely spoken of the night!

Raad, we are happy to host you anytime and we hope to see you at our future slams! Check out his IG: @raadsharrar and the organization he volunteers at @cairnewyork to keep up with his amazing adventures!

Ten has won yet ANOTHER Nuyorican Bowery Slam! His skill with the spoken word is unimpeachable, and at this point there should be nothing that can barr his path to the top of the NYC poetry slam ecosystem! While we aren’t surprised that he has taken the win, we are grateful for his consistent dedication and participation in the fight towards the 2025 Grand Slam. Amazingly, it must be noted that Ten also switched up his flow at this slam, and even with the experimental style he displayed, he took the chip for the night!

Big shouts out to @fireline888 for making our events lively and exciting, and bringing his unique brand of excellence to the Nuyorican!

Lyrical Faith has amazing accolades under her belt: she’s a world renowned poet, a scholar studying for her PhD at the University of Massachusetts, AND she’s the most recent victor of the Nuyorican Bowery Slam! Though she wasn’t the first round’s leader, Lyrical Faith earned the ONLY perfect 30 in the second round, securing her top spot with a 59.2 total. Her work extends across a wide breadth of nominal modern topics and uses a mix of tried and true and experimental spoken word styles, giving her poems a sense of familiarity before they surprise and wow the crowd. 

We are so blessed to have been able to hold space for the work of @lyricalfaithpoetry this past Monday, and we look forward to the day that she can tear herself away from her important studies and grace the Nuyorican stages again!

What more can we say about this ABSOLUTE GEM of a poet? He’s a phenom, a firestarter, and a poetic talent that anyone would be blessed to come across. Ten represents the best qualities a poet of the modern age can possess, and it can’t be understated the amount of practice and hours of effort that go into cultivating such thought provoking pieces. His dogged tenacity is apparent with one Final Friday win and TWO Nuyorican Bowery Slam wins under his belt for the 2025 Slam Season!

If you’re following the poetry scene in NYC, you have to take notice of Ten! We love his work and will always be open to hosting him at any of our events to be graced with the beauty of his art! Please give Ten his kudos and check out his social media endeavors @fireline888. Thank you Ten! We wish you the world!

In what we believe has been the most competitive and exciting Nuyorican Bowery Slam of the 2025 Season, Sumbodies Mama “took the chip” with her time tested spoken word which discusses topics like womanhood, grooming, and gun violence. As the reigning 2024 Grand Slam Champion, she was able to edge out a victory over her supremely talented Nuyorican Slam team competitors and defend her title as the most invigorating poet of the night. Sumbodies Mama is on a generational run, and she is talented enough to beat any spoken word poet in the WORLD right now! Please give @sumbodies_mama her well deserved flowers and check out her IG to learn more about her story as an artist!

Big ups to Marquis for winning May’s Final Friday Slam. This slam had a STACKED line-up of competitive poets, so it makes Marquis’s win even more impressive. Even though he’s one of the youngest finalists this season, he brings an especially practiced and refined style of spoken word to the stage. In the third round, there was even a moment where he caught everyone off-guard, making the crowd think he forgot his lines, when it was really part of the bigger message. With his signature style of double-entendres enlightening observations on society, race relations, and life as a young man of color, Marquis was able to grab this month’s win and nominate himself as one of the top contenders for the 2025 Nuyorican Grand Slam!

Give this young man his props and check out his IG: @im.marquis to see what other endeavors he’s engaging in on his rise to notoriety! Marquis, thank you for gracing us with your wonderful spoken word, we wish you the best!

Shout out to Ten for winning this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam! His poetry has reached the level of being it’s own genre at this point; complete with Jazz-inspired scat that feels like it’d be impossible to transcribe onto a page. What Ten does on the stage reminds our team of the poetic styles portrayed by our Nuyorican Founders which is one of the many reasons why we love to host him every time he performs!

His consistent efforts during our Slam Season this year show Ten’s determination and overflowing poetic talent! We congratulate and thank @fireline888. Check him out on IG and give him his props!

Shout out to @im.marquis for securing a win in this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam. With a perfect score of 60 points for the night, Marquis blew away both his fellow competitors and the crowd with his work, which beautifully ties together his experiences as a young man of color with insightful observations, spinning wonderful weaves that contain both a surplus of wordplay and double entendre.

His youth may seem to some like a detractor from his ability in poetry, but we believe it enlivens and adds to his creative flow in a way that others have much difficulty matching. We look forward to seeing Marquis at our future slam events and hope he takes his poetry career to new heights! Thank you @im.marquis! Don’t forget to check out his Instagram to offer your own congratulations to the young phenom.

Give a great big congrats to UGBA for his second Nuyorican Bowery Slam win of the 2025 Slam Season! His poems this week were especially skillful in that they exemplified his ability to improvise off the cuff. In both rounds, UGBA paid homage to his beloved poetry colleagues King Kamayera and Sumbodies Mama. In this fantastic display of poetic mastery, UGBA received a perfect score of 60.0 on the night and took home this Monday’s cash prize. We at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe give @call.me.ugba all the credit he deserves and wish him luck in his future poetry competitions!

Let’s applaud Matthew Marroquín @vida_marroquin for being May’s first Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winner! Matthew is not only a cherished member of our Nuyorican family, but a multi-talented artist and dedicated human rights activist! After a competitor bowed out of the slam line up, Matthew was selected out of the sacrificial lottery and moved on to become a part of the top 3 poets in round 2! The surprises continued in round 2, when his competitor was unable to secure the win due to a 1 SECOND time deduction, paving the way to Matthew’s victory! 

His experience with dehumanization on the part of the state informs his poetry which brings this unspoken plight to the center stage of our political conversations. Matthew truly embodies the best aspects of Nuyorican poetry with his dogged determination as an activist, and we are proud to platform and amplify his worthy message. Give him his flowers by checking out his page on Instagram @vida_marroquin.

This week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winner is the one and only Daniel! This seasoned slam poet “took the chip” by bringing the best of his work, which fuses the injustices he has experienced as a Hispanic immigrant with enlightening social commentary and philosophic perspectives. As a poet who can bring the crowd to a standstill with solemn words or make them guffaw with laughter at a quirky turn of diction, Daniel’s recent Slam win is definitely well-deserved! 

We offer him our proudest congratulations. To keep up with Daniel, follow him on Instagram @doktordan10 and catch him bringing his special brand of spoken word to our May Final Friday Slam!

Congratulations to UGBA for his stand out Final Friday Slam win! April’s Final Friday cast of competitors included a slew of both regional and international champions which made the contest a stress inducing nail biter. Nevertheless, UGBA was able to thug it out through tiebreakers and the element of chance that comes with poetry slams and secure his nomination for 2025’s Nuyorican Grand Slam! His work holds both incisive and comprehensive qualities which brings the audience from their internal to their external world; and then rushes right back, making his performances feel like wild roller-coaster rides that can go just about anywhere. Add on his startlingly adept use of poetic language, and you have UGBA, a poet that stands proudly and justifiably at the top of the NYC spoken word scene.

Please check out his amazing work @call.me.ugba and make sure to give him his well-deserved props for crossing the Final Friday Slam finish line as a Champion!

Congratulations to this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winner Phil C. Alexander! After attending for several weeks in a row, he is the first member of the phenomenally talented Connecticut Slam Team to catch a Monday win. It has been a long term goal of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to take what we do in New York City and bring it to the rest of the country and (hopefully) the rest of the world someday.

Phil has not only shown his unfettered determination and skill to succeed in the poetry scene, but also helped us in taking the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to the National stage! Thank you so much @philcalexander_ !We look forward to seeing you kill it in the future!

Shout out to UGBA for blowing away this week’s competition and securing an undisputed win at April’s second Nuyorican Bowery Slam! As the second member of the Nuyorican’s National Slam team to get a win this month, we are extremely proud to claim UGBA as an integral member of our family of talented poets. One of his poems this Monday brought the crowd to a standing ovation from his pairing of the complex themes of sexuality and Black identity; and he used blood as the medium for his awakening into an epic conclusion!

Whether it’s performance style, or the central ideas of his poems, UGBA is untouched in skill and creativity. Not to mention, he does this all while uplifting and assisting his beloved poetry colleagues. UGBA is a rare talent, and we’re so glad to have the opportunity to house his art. Please check out @call.me.ugba to see and get involved with his other artistic endeavors!

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is HONORED to crown Sola Kush as this week’s Nuyorican Bowery Slam winner! It was with a mix of “new sh!t” and time-tested classics that she swept away the competition. Her poems this Monday mainly focused on womanhood and the stresses that come with it; and they were so good that everyone in the crowd resonated deeply with both the content and manner in which her ideas were so perfectly delivered. Despite being a national spoken word poetry champion, Sola Kush has remained humble, amicable and is consistently driven to make her work even better!

We congratulate @solakush not only for her win in this week’s slam, but also for being an awe-inspiring and amazing person all around. We look forward to seeing more of her incredible performances in the future!

Ethan Kim is this week's Monday Night Slam winner! In an incredibly close final round (five poets with scores nearly .1 away from each other!), Ethan’s pieces had the crowd laughing, shouting, and stomping along. If anyone knows how to get the crowd hype, it’s Ethan.

It’s been a pleasure to watch Ethan’s poems transform from New Sh!t to fan favorites– almost every audience member screamed “It’s kimbap!” in a triumphant roar with him at the end of an incredible slam. Make sure to catch Ethan’s performance at the Final Friday Slam, and follow his Instagram @ethanjkim

March’s Final Friday Slam happened to be the most competitive and close-scoring bracket the Nuyorican Poets Cafe has seen in a long while! The margin of scores between poets from the second round onward didn’t extend beyond 0.1 points, showing how close the matches were all night.

Ten’s smooth sonorous tenor sound and gospel-like delivery pushed him out over his opponents! He came on stage as the night’s lottery-slot poet, which made his victory all the more amazing and was a historic first for the Cafe! The Nuyorican Poets Cafe congratulates our March Final Friday Winners! Check out his IG: @fireline888

Kai has returned to the winner’s circle following their second Nuyorican Bowery Slam win! What more can we say about this phenomenon of a poet; maybe that listening to their work may just change your life as it did for so many others this week!

It is with great pleasure that we at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe have been able to witness Kai’s transformation from a talented poet to an absolute force of a performer! Now that they’ve won two Monday Slams in a row, you could go as far as to say that we’re doubly excited to see them battle it out with our other slam competitors March 28th at the Final Friday Slam. Please visit their Instagram page @kaidgpoet and see what other artistic and poetic endeavors Kai’s up to!

Our recent Nuyorican Bowery Slams have been some of the closest and most entertaining ever! Following a dead-heat finish, Kai Diata Giovanni was chosen by the audience to head into the next round and compete at the Final Friday Slam on March 28th!

Kai is a dedicated poet who shows up to nearly every single one of our Monday slams and it is clear that their intention is to qualify for this year’s Grand Slam! Noticing how the crowd rallied behind them to earn them the Bowery win must have been encouragement for them to continue their path to the Grand Slam. We are so proud of this young poet and we hope they continue to feel comfortable enough to continue performing at all our events as they work to change the world with their art. Thank you and congratulations to @kaidgpoet!

BIG shout out to this week's Nuyorican Bowery Slam winner, Paul con Queso! He’s not only a super talented poet, but he’s a massive contributor to New Jersey and New York City’s arts communities!

Paul’s poetic works are flowing epics that fuse media, the nonsensical patterns of political strife, and nominal world events. The results are poetic pieces that captivate crowds as much as they cause them to gasp and laugh. Each poem is a wild ride that always arrives at an unknown but exciting destination! We wish him the best of luck at this month’s Final Friday Slam! Check out some of his poetry on his IG page: @paulconqueso

Welcome back to the Winner’s Circle Jayden! In a well-deserved second win in our 2025 Slam Season, Jayden performed his crowd favorites to win by a 0.1 margin in the closest second round of the Nuyorican Bowery Slam so far! His work at this week’s slam consisted mostly of indignant repudiations of modern America, spanning from his evolving fear of school shootings as a teacher to the lie that is the American dream.

Jayden’s work has grown this year to masterfully mix of the story told by his physical body while performing, and his lush diction and wordplay. As the poems he performs near their end, the physical and the verbal overlay upon each other, providing an almost impossible-to-replicate depth to his work! The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is proud to knight @jaydenantwine this weeks’ Nuyorican Bowery Slam Champion, and we look forward to seeing him in the Final Friday Slam.

If you couldn’t make it to our February 2025 Final Friday Slam you missed out on one of the best slams of the season! Our invited competitor Ramya came back from a 1st round defeat to win it all, a historic first for the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

In what can only be compared to a reverse 3-0, Ramya came triumphantly back to perform after the crowd cheered her back into the competition as our Second Chance Poet. She refused to let her loss in the first round determine her fate and brought out the big guns, performing four poems in total!

Her victory showed all in attendance that our poets are not only the best and brightest in their class but also prepared for any eventuality. We are so glad to be the ones to reintroduce @ramyaramana to the Slam scene in NYC, and we look forward to seeing her at the Nuyorican Bowery Slam and (hopefully) this year’s Grand Slam!

The most amazing part about being present at the Nuyorican Bowery Slam week after week is the gradual and noticeable growth to the work of our regulars. Jamal stands on business and never stops pursuing greater heights even though he already performs amazingly every slam! Small adjustments to his spoken word performance style have taken his poems from stunning to powerful enough to induce tears from those in attendance.

Though he scored a near perfect 59.8/60.0 on the night, he will not be attending the February Final Friday Slam in order to spend time with his family. His presence at our most important slam of the month will be sorely missed, but we at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe wish him and his the best in the meantime! Check him out on social media @sagetheracer

Brian The Motel Guy locked in his second Nuyorican Bowery Slam win of the 2025 season in an exciting match that was close up until the very finish! This week's competition had him facing off against equally skilled poets and a trio of tough judges who didn't give any perfect 10's throughout the entire night of the competition.

We at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe understand that these slams are not 100% skill based and require that extra 1 or 2%  of "luck" to win, mostly due to the fact that any form of art cannot be objectively quantified. No matter how you strategize or how good your poem is, sometimes it's just not your night. This has never been a detractor to Brian's confidence though, and he comes to nearly every one of our slams with the same amicable demeanor and an outlook focused on winning.

We're hoping other poets looking to take part in our 2025 Grand Slam see the benefits of the 'repeat attendance' strategy as a method to curb the bias of luck. In our humble opinion, the willpower to repeatedly try again despite past losses is what makes talented artists of any medium successful! Congratulations, @brianacostaarya—not only for your awesome poems that stun the crowd every time, but for having the heart to never stop believing in yourself!

Jayden was this Monday slam winner—a well-earned first win of the year for him. No stranger to the Nuyorican, Jayden has long been a crowd favorite for his ability to pull the audience in; the entire room is in the palm of his hand within moments of stepping to the mic.

His second-round poem told the story of his grandfather’s passing and the profound emotional toll this grief took on him. A heartfelt tribute, he begins and ends the poem with “I can feel the rumble in my feet,” first evoking his grandfather’s love of trains, then to the spiritual presence he still feels. When Jayden speaks, you can hear a pin drop. Congrats @jaydenantwine, and don’t miss his performance at this month’s Final Friday Slam!

Beating the competition by a full point (we consider this a rare feat), E’Lee James is February’s first Bowery Slam Winner. Singer, poet, and painter, James performed a new piece in the second round, captivating both the audience and her peers with raw, wordplay. "I’ve learned to never dance with the devil without your devices of defense."

In her performance, James grapples with the bravery it takes to speak even when it feels like the world is against her. She argues that her voice is everything to her because that bravery is what inspires all of us going through hardships to keep pushing forward. Obviously, she succeeds in inspiring us all. Be sure to check out elee.james at this month’s Final Friday Slam!

The first Nuyorican Final Friday Slam Winner of the 2025 Grand Slam Season is Marcus Stokes! We are so glad to congratulate him with his first Final Friday Slam win and a nomination for this year's Grand Slam because he revealed an uber-polished flow and style of dictation that brought his impressive wordplay and communication of perspective to the next level!

His winning poem begins and ends with the "primordial ooze" within which life was first conceived; taking us through a drawn out and semi-comical history of the world that repudiates the position people of color find themselves in today. Marcus tells us that the modern struggles we face are specifically placed there by those who are afraid of what people of color would do should they not face the systemic difficulties we do. His poetic excursion enraptured the crowd, leaving them no choice but to grant him his well deserved Final Friday win. We hope to see you at the Grand Slam, @_marcus_stokes!

The work Daniel performed this week that earned him his spot at our Final Friday Slam was closely tied to his youth as a hispanic male contending with America's modern landscape of ostracism and thinly veiled racism. With a delivery that can only be qualified as brave and unapologetic shout for equal treatment and sentiment; mixed with the clever wordplay that only comes with years of poetic ponderance and polishing, Daniel is quickly finding himself amongst our strongest and most talented 2025 Grand Slam Season Poets.

In their first time ever slamming, Ali-Ben Dan edged out a victory by a .1 margin. Unfortunately, they are unable to participate in their earned Final Friday Slots, but we are looking forward to future performances to this upcoming trailblazer in the poetry scene! The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is ecstatic to highlight and congratulate this week's Nuyorican Bowery Slam Winner @Imalwaysali - please check out their page and show them some love!!

Despite the fact that she lives in a certain northern neighbor of ours, Titi has traveled the distance to several of our Nuyorican Bowery Mondays and even won against some of the most competitive spoken word poets NYC has to offer!

After not one but two back to back ties against another of our Bowery Winners, Brian, Titi was specially chosen by that night's crowd to take the chip because they were smitten with her nonchalant delivery and hard hitting one-liners! Her work that focuses on romance and her experience as a woman resonates deeply with her audience, and though she's not participating in this month's Final Friday Slam, we are glad she took the time to show us her prodigious skill with spoken word! Thanks @callhertiti!

Congratulations to another of our Nuyorican Bowery Slam winners: Marcus Stokes. As an artist, he is among the most multifaceted poets we have had the pleasure of working with. He's a rapper, a spoken word poet, and most importantly, a committed artist; making him a phenomenal writer in many forms!

Marcus is a master of flow who brings a certain brand of nonconformity to his spoken word that just makes the crowd go wild! For this reason and many others, we are so glad to introduce Marcus Stokes to those of you interested in our 2025 Nuyorican Grand Slam Season! We wish Marcus the best of luck in his future bouts!