Poetry. "Michael Cirelli has invented his own electric school of lyric, stamping an unflinching signature on soul-infused stanzas that are alternately tender, tough, revelatory and always, alwaays unapologetic. What's most amazing is that he possesses a voice that doesn't seem to have occurred before--its definitive drum works its way into your head and stays there, making you crave more of the infectious music he drops, exactly the way he drops it. Damn"--Patricia Smith Michael. Cirelli is from Providence, Rhode Island. He is the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, an award-winning literary arts organization for teens. He is also the author of Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics (Milk Mug, 2004), and received his MFA in poetry from the New School. His poems have appeared in the New York Quarterly, Texas Review, Hanging Loose, Word Is Bond, Spindle, among others. He has also been featured in World Literature Today, Spoken Word Revolution Redux, HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and King Magazine: The Illest Men's Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn.

This book makes a spirited argument for hip-hop as an important form of contemporary American poetry. It discusses hip-hop artists such as Eminem, Jay-Z, and Kanye West alongside canonical poets like Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Auden. This book is penned in an accessible style that will appeal to general readers and students interested in hip hop and/or contemporary poetry. It offers an overview of three prominent rhymes favored by hip hop artists: doggerel, insult, and seduction.

"What is Hip-Hop?" In order to answer this question, author Andrew J. Rausch interviewed 24 individuals whose creative expressions are intimately associated with the world of hip-hop music and culture. Those interviewed include emcees, DJs, producers, graffiti artists, poets, and journalists. Topics of these conversations cover the careers of each of these people and their contributions/affiliations with hip-hop, as well as their views on different trends within the music. Intended as a celebration of hip-hop music and culture, this collection of interviews ranges from the up-and-coming (Akrobatik, Rob Kelly) to the legendary (Chuck D, Big Daddy Kane). Also interviewed are Eric B., Black Sheep Dres, Chip Fu, Michael Cirelli, Daddy-O, DJ JS-1, dream hampton, Kokane, Kool Keith, Kool Rock Ski, Keith Murray, 9th Wonder, Paradime, R.A. the Rugged Man, Sadat X, Shock G, Special Ed, Spinderella, Sticky Fingaz, and Young MC. Because many of these artists worked and performed in the so-called "golden age" of hip-hop, they offer insights on the merits and problems of what hip-hop has grown into today. From their candid observations, the reader will understand how each of these men and women have contributed to the culture and how each, in his or her own way, can rightly answer "I AM hip-hop."

The latest installment of the yearly anthology of contemporary American poetry that has achieved brand-name status in the literary world.

A first-of-its-kind anthology of hip-hop poetica written for and by the people.