Each year we create an exciting partnership with a nationally recognized spoken word artist. These artists select the recipients of our VERVE grants.

2009 VERVE Grant Judge: Ursula Rucker

As a poet and performance artist, URSULA RUCKER has enchanted critics and fans across the globe with her diverse repertoire, captivating vocals and accessible poetic verse. In 1994, she introduced an open-mic night audience at Philadelphia’s Zanzibar Blue to the beauty and urgency of her poetry. Producer King Britt invited her to create her first recording, the 1994 single, “Supernatural” (Ovum/Slip N Slide UK).

When Ntozake Shange was unable to provide The Roots with a spoken word contribution for their debut album Do You Want More?!!?!! (Geffen, 1994), they called on her to fit the bill. “The Unlocking”, which closed the album, introduced Ursula to the world of progressive hip-hop and led to subsequent invitations to close The Roots follow-up albums Iladelph Halflife (Geffen, 1996) and Things Fall Apart (MCA, 1999).

Ursula’s work has been described as part of a growing movement that is slowly adapting its aural sensibilities to women, particularly in the hip-hop and urban music. Counteracting male artists who casually linger on tales of black whoredom, Ursula plays an essential role in the rise of a new crop of female recording artists who deliver strong, intelligent, and visionary feminine flavor.

The onslaught of press inquiries resulted in nods, features and demands for more of her work, in URB, VIBE, XXL, Panache, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Straight No Chaser.

To date, Ursula has performed her work at an array of venues, universities, and festivals including Montreaux Jazz Festival, Winter Music Conference, Theater of the Living Arts, Painted Bride Art Center, World Café Live, and Drexel University. Ursula has toured with Jamaaladeen Tacuma, SYLK130, and 4 HERO in the United States and Europe.

Past VERVE Grant Judges

ISHLE YI PARK (2006) is a Korean American woman who is the Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. Her first book, The Temperature of This Water, is the winner of three awards: the Pen America Award for Outstanding Writers of Color, the Members' Choice Award of the Asian American Literary Awards, and an Honorable Mention from the A.A.A.S. (Association of Asian American Studies). Ishle has taught creative writing in high schools, colleges, prisons, and community centers across the country.

Ishle's CD, Work is Love, includes tracks with Korean traditional drums, Spanish guitar, beat boxing, and music produced by Japan's critically acclaimed DJ Honda. Ishle has opened for artists such as KRS-One, Ben Harper, De La Soul, and Saul Williams, and she has been featured at literary & music festivals in the United States and abroad, including the Singapore Writers' Festival, the New Visions Festival in Seoul & Chejudo, Korea, the iFest Music Festival in Texas, the Skyfest Music Festival in Colorado, and the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica.

Ishle has performed her unique blend of poetry, storytelling & song at over three hundred venues around the world. She is a regular on HBO's Russell Simmons Presents: Def Poetry Jam and was featured on the NAACP Image Awards reading a tribute poem to Venus and Serena Williams. Ishle was also a touring cast member of the Tony-Award winning Def Poetry Jam, performing in 51 cities in the United States and at the Auckland Festival. A feature article in The New York Times said, "Ishle has the face of an angel and the soul of a rock star."

Visit her website at www.ishle.com.

PAUL S. FLORES (2005) is the 2003 PEN OAKLAND award-winning author of the novel Along the Border Lies (ZYZZYVA). He has been performing spoken word for national audiences since 1996 as a member of Los Delicados: Poetas de Sol. He has featured at the National Hip Hop Festival in La Habana, Cuba, The Chicago Museum for Contemporary Arts, The Nuyorican Poets Café, and on two seasons of Russell Simmons Presents: Def Poetry on HBO. He is the author of three plays in hip hop and spoken word theater, including "de/cipher" (2001; supported by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/Intersection for the Arts) a critical examination of hip hop in verse, "No Man's Land" (2002; supported by Youth Speaks & the Creative Work Fund) directed by Kamilah Forbes of The New York City Hip hop Theater Festival, and "The Fruitvale Project" (2003; La Pena & Association of Presenting Arts Partners), a docu-theater performance about the immigrant community of Fruitvale in East Oakland, directed by Elia Arce. He has recently been awarded a National Performance Network Residency Grant with Xicanindio (Mesa, AZ) and El Centro Su Teatro (Denver, CO) to develop "The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word". Paul is the Program Director of Youth Speaks in San Francisco, the nation’s premier presenter of spoken word for teenagers.

Paul has worked closely with many talented writers, musicians and artists including: Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Elia Arce, Danny Valdez, Bamuthi, Saul Williams, Willie Perdomo, Susana Baca, Common, The Last Poets, Piri Thomas, Danny Hoch, Lysa Flores, John Santos, The Marcus Shelby Orchestra and many more. He is currently at work on The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word, a traveling “future aesthetics” theater group including poets Amalia Ortiz and Marc Pinate, scheduled to tour the Southwest in Spring 2004.

Paul’s knowledge of the young Latino arts and spoken word community is a valued resource to many different national networks, organizations and media outlets. He has been a keynote speaker at the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture Conference 2001, Brown University Multi-racial Heritage Convocation 2001, and Encuentro 2002 Border Arts Festival sponsored by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, and the National Performance Network’s Annual Conference 2002. He also has been a featured guest on National Public Radio’s “Forum” with Michael Krasny, and has twice been an invited literary panelist at The Common Wealth Club of San Francisco. He is the recipient of the Creative Work Fund, twice (1998, 2001), and was the first spoken word artist to ever be awarded the California Arts Council Spoken Word Fellowship (2002). He has recorded recently on Handbook to the Apocalypse (Wide Hive Records, 2003), Word Descarga, Los Delicados spoken word CD (Calaca Press, 2001), and Spoken City (Noir Records, 1998). He has published stories, poems and book reviews in many periodicals and literary magazines including The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle and ZYZZYVA Magazine. He is the former artistic director of “Hecho en Califas Performance Festival” for emerging Latino artists from California, and Collective Soul’s venue for hip hop culture at La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley. Paul holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

MERI NANA-AMA DANQUAH (2004) A native of Ghana, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah immigrated to the United States at the age of six with her family. Her first book, Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression, was published in 1998 by W.W. Norton & Co. to great acclaim. It was the first book published by an African-American to address the topic of depression. The Washington Post hailed the book as "a vividly textured flower of a memoir that will surely stand as one of the finest to come along in years." As a result of this groundbreaking work, Meri Danquah was featured on The Today Show, Lifetime Television for Women, ABC World News Tonight, and she was the subject of two documentaries on the topic of depression. Meri Danquah was also chosen by the National Mental Health Association to be the national spokesperson for their "Campaign on Clinical Depression," an initiative that specifically targeted African American women and was launch in cooperation with organizations such as the National Council of Negro, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the National Association of Black Social Workers. In this capacity, she toured the nation delivering speeches and addressing audiences at conferences, workshops, in churches and at bookstores, with the aim of promoting awareness of clinical depression in order to lessen the existing stigma in African American communities surrounding the disorder. In 2000, at the age of 32, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Welcome Back Awards organization, an alliance of mental health advocacy groups.

Meri Danquah's writing has been featured in magazines and newspapers such as the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, Allure, Essence, Emerge and Los Angeles Magazine. She has published numerous book reviews, first person essays and personality profiles. Her fiction and poetry have been widely anthologized in both national and international journals, magazines and anthologies. She was the recipient of a Pauline and Henry Louis Gates, Sr. fellowship from the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, as well as a California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction. She earned her MFA degree in Creative Writing and Literature, with an emphasis in Creative Nonfiction, from Bennington College. During the 2000-01 academic year, Ms. Danquah returned to Ghana, her native country, where she held a Visiting Scholar appointment at the University of Ghana's Graduate School of Communications Studies.

Meri Danquah is the editor of two anthologies: Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women, published in 2000 by Hyperion, and Shaking The Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, which is forthcoming from W.W. Norton & Co. in July 2002. Currently, she is completing a creative nonfiction book for Riverhead, which will be published in 2004 and writing a novel for the young adult market. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her daughter.

JESSICA CARE MOORE (2003) If the conversation is "this new generation of poets," then at some point the name Jessica Care Moore will inevitably come up. Jessica Care Moore-Poole is the CEO of the thriving publishing house, Moore Black Press. One of the most celebrated, published poets and public speakers of her generation, Jessica Care Moore has issued a strong, defiant, and educated voice into the literary, theatrical, publishing and music industries.

You've already witnessed the dynamic young voice from the Motor City that swept the nationally televised It's Showtime at the Apollo's notoriously tough audiences off their feet, winning a record five consecutive weeks with her powerful lyrics. Jessica Care Moore made history on that stage and is recognized as an Apollo Legend. Jessica is the current star, producer and writer of the a new poetry and music driven show SPOKEN! on the Black Family Channel, operated by CEO Robert Townsend. The show is produced in association with Moore Black Press.

Author of the best selling poetry collections, The Words Don't Fit In My Mouth, and The Alphabet Verses The Ghetto, she is no ordinary poet; she is one of the hottest young book publishers in the country. The CEO of Moore Black Press was awarded a Small Press Award from the African-Americans Helping Authors Organization in NYC.

Jessica Care Moore has shared stages and worked with numerous literary and musical artists such as George Clinton, Antonio Hart, NAS, Ossie Davis, Mos Def, the late great Gregory Hines, Judith Jamison, CeCe Winans, Anthony David, Roy Ayers, Gil Scott Herron, Sonia Sanchez, Steve Harvey, Cedric The Entertainer, Patrice Rushen, Talib Kweli, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poets and many more. She is one of the returning stars of the HBO Series Russell Simmons presents: Def Poetry Jam and has been featured on B.E.T.'s, NYLA, The Ed Gordon Show, Teen Summit, NBC's Today Show, and U.P.N.'s Living The Dream Special.