Alyesha Wise, also known as Ms. Wise, is a poet, teaching artist and co-founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement (S.L.A.M). From

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a City (New Jersey), city in Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan region. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828.Snyder, John P''The Story of ...

, Alyesha currently resides in Los Angeles where she also serves as a teaching artist for Street Poets, Inc. Wise previously served as the head coach of

Da Poetry Lounge Da Poetry Lounge is the largest weekly open mic performance space for poetry in the U.S. It is located in Los Angeles at the Greenway Court Theatre. History Da Poetry Lounge was founded in 1998 as "Dante's Poetry Lounge" by poets Dante Basco, ...

's slam team and a co-coach for the Get Lit Youth slam team. She co-founded and was a co-host of The Pigeon Presents: The Philadelphia Poetry Slam''.'' She has been featured in a speaking engagement on the

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

Talk series in which she dedicated the talk to her younger sister and Camden. While in Philadelphia, Wise was a co-host of Jus Words, the longest running weekly open mic in the city at the time. Wise is the founder and organizer of ''Black Women Necessary'', a safe space for black women. Wise also served as a former teaching artist and volunteer coordinator at New Earth, and continues to teach and mentor in Los Angeles youth detention centers. In 2017, she authored the book, ''Carnival''. Ron Howard once said about Alyesha's performance style, "Very Powerful." Wise's poetry commonly expresses themes of feminism, African-American culture, bodies and inherited trauma, social justice, queerness, and sexual assault.

Personal life

Early life

Wise is originally from

. She has five siblings (Wise is the second oldest girl) and was raised mostly by her mother. Her parents got divorced when she was five. After watching

Poetic Justice Poetic justice, also called poetic irony, is a literary device with which ultimately virtue is rewarded and misdeeds are punished. In modern literature, it is often accompanied by an ironic twist of fate related to the character's own action, h ...

, at age 11, she wrote her first poem titled, "Black History."

Adulthood

Wise moved to Philadelphia in 2006. Wise identified as a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

for eight years, and has had relationships with women.

Awards

* 2018 2nd place Da Poetry Lounge National Poetry Slam * 2014 Da Poetry Lounge Hollywood Grand Slam Champion * Two-time

Women of the World Poetry Slam The Women of the World Poetry Slam (WoWPS) (since 2021 known as Womxn of the World Poetry Slam) is an annual international poetry competition and festival. The poetry slam is open to "people 18 years and older who navigate the world as and/or id ...

finalist * 2012 Queens Inspire Kings award presented by Kings Rule Together * 2010 5th in the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2010

Notable performances

* "We Will" with ACLU of Southern California *"Raising Her By Raising Myself" TEDx * "Cannibal (A Poem to White Supremacy)" * "To This Black Woman Body, Part I" * "A Story of My Love Affair With Prince" ** Originally performed at PhilaMOCA in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

for the TV show, Articulate on WHYY.

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise, Alyesha American women poets 21st-century American poets Slam poets Living people 21st-century American women writers Year of birth missing (living people)