Marcus Wicker

Michigan native Marcus Wicker talks about how his poetry has progressed since his early days with poetry slams and reads from the 2011 National Poetry Series winning collection, Maybe the Saddest Thing, a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Poetry. He reveals why music and pop culture subject matter, ranging from Flavor Flav to Bruce Lee, appear so much in this first book. He also shares the genesis for his second book, Silencer—another NAACP poetry finalist and winner of the 2018 Arnold Adoff Poetry Award– which mixes his love of music with stories of racism and violence. A two-time Cave Canem fellow, the poetry editor of Southern Indiana Review now teaches at the University of Memphis, and talks about what he learns from reading other poets. This program also contains musical segments by his brother, the hip hop producer, Flaw da God.