Beau Sia
Encyclopedia
Beau Sia is an American
slam poet.
. He is of Chinese
-Filipino descent. Raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
, Sia discovered spoken word
poetry
on MTV
as a teenager. When not participating in his high school's swim team, he spent time at Oklahoma City's only open mike
night.
In 1995, Sia moved to New York City
, where he attended the New York University
's Tisch School of the Arts
dramatic writing program. He has said that moving to New York
made him conscious of his identity as an Asian American
, something that he denied often in Oklahoma City. His cultural identity
became a common theme in his poems.
Sia began performing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
, eventually earning himself a place on the 1996 Nuyorican National Poetry Slam
team. That same year, he would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation
. The film followed Sia and his Nuyorican teammates (Saul Williams
, Jessica Care Moore
and muMs da Schemer
) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam
. The team would go on to place third in the nation, and have a lasting impact on how people would view slam poetry. In the book Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
wrote of Sia's impact, noting
Sia's relationship with the Poetry Slam community continued. He eventually earned two National Poetry Slam
Championships in 1997 and 2000 while competing on the NYC-Urbana national poetry slam team. He would also reach second place in the Individual Poetry Slam competition in 2001.
He wrote a parody
of Jewel
's work A Night Without Armor within four hours and published it as A Night Without Armor II: the Revenge in 1998. He wrote different poems with Jewel's original titles, lampooning her earnest lines. It is painfully detailed in its satire, changing the delicate paintings printed in Jewel's book to rough, humorous pencil drawings by Sia. The front and back cover were also painstakingly mirrored.
Sia then began touring around Europe and the United States. He also appeared in films and published a wide range of his works in book and compact disc
form. He also released an album on Mouth Almighty Records, a spoken-word imprint of Mercury/PolyGram Records that was active during the 1990s.
in 1996. It is featured on his CD Attack! Attack! Go!, as well as being included in the book Slam.
; he later appeared in the Broadway
version, Def Poetry Jam.
He appeared in Slam
in 1998 as Jimmy Huang. The same year, he participated in the documentary
SlamNation
as himself. Later appearances include The Manchurian Candidate
(2004) as a late-night comedian on television and
Hitch
(2005) as Duane Reade
Clerk.
Sia portrays the protagonist in the music video for Wolf Like Me
by the band TV on the Radio
.
Sia plays Norman Sklear, a wedding czar emcee in Rachel Getting Married
(2008)
Sia is also featured in a Trident Layers Commercial (2009)
Print
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
slam poet.
Biography
Sia was born in OhioOhio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. He is of Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
-Filipino descent. Raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...
, Sia discovered spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
as a teenager. When not participating in his high school's swim team, he spent time at Oklahoma City's only open mike
Open mike
An open mike or open mic is a live show where audience members may perform at the microphone. Usually, the performers sign up in advance for a time slot with the host or master of ceremonies. These events can be focused on poetry and the spoken word, music, comedy, and the open format of open...
night.
In 1995, Sia moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he attended the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15 schools that make up New York University ....
dramatic writing program. He has said that moving to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
made him conscious of his identity as an Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
, something that he denied often in Oklahoma City. His cultural identity
Cultural identity
Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
became a common theme in his poems.
Sia began performing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Nuyorican Poets Café
The Nuyorican Poets Café is a non-profit organization in Alphabet City, Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, USA, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy and theatre.-History:...
, eventually earning himself a place on the 1996 Nuyorican National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
team. That same year, he would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation
SlamNation
SlamNation is a documentary film by director Paul Devlin. The film follows the National Poetry Slam in Portland, Oregon.It follows the 1996 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam held in Portland, OR...
. The film followed Sia and his Nuyorican teammates (Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, Jessica Care Moore
Jessica Care Moore
Jessica Care Moore is an African American poet born in Detroit, on October 28, 1971.-Career:Moore first won acclaim as the first poet to ever win the nationally televised Showtime at the Apollo competition 5 times in a row. That same year, she would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation...
and muMs da Schemer
MuMs da Schemer
muMs da Schemer is a poet and actor best known for his role as Arnold "Poet" Jackson on the HBO series Oz....
) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
. The team would go on to place third in the nation, and have a lasting impact on how people would view slam poetry. In the book Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is an American poet and writer. Recently, she was awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.-Life:...
wrote of Sia's impact, noting
Sia's relationship with the Poetry Slam community continued. He eventually earned two National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
Championships in 1997 and 2000 while competing on the NYC-Urbana national poetry slam team. He would also reach second place in the Individual Poetry Slam competition in 2001.
He wrote a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Jewel
Jewel (singer)
Jewel Kilcher , professionally known as Jewel, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actress and poet...
's work A Night Without Armor within four hours and published it as A Night Without Armor II: the Revenge in 1998. He wrote different poems with Jewel's original titles, lampooning her earnest lines. It is painfully detailed in its satire, changing the delicate paintings printed in Jewel's book to rough, humorous pencil drawings by Sia. The front and back cover were also painstakingly mirrored.
Sia then began touring around Europe and the United States. He also appeared in films and published a wide range of his works in book and compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
form. He also released an album on Mouth Almighty Records, a spoken-word imprint of Mercury/PolyGram Records that was active during the 1990s.
Style and examples
Sia's style is humorous and satirical. His word choice is often deceptively simple. A good example of his work is the poem "love," which was first performed at Marymount Manhattan CollegeMarymount Manhattan College
Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, coeducational, independent, private, liberal arts college located in Manhattan, New York City, New York with a focus in performing arts. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual...
in 1996. It is featured on his CD Attack! Attack! Go!, as well as being included in the book Slam.
Works
- Sia, Beau. A Night Without Armor II: the Revenge. New York: Mouth Almighty Books, 1998.
- Sia, Beau. Attack! Attack! Go! Compact discCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
released in 1998 by Mouth Almighty/MercuryMercury RecordsMercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
/PolyGram Records.
Inclusion in anthologies
- Cabico, Regie and Todd Swift, eds. Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry. Vehicle Press, 1998.
- Colby, Todd, ed. Heights of the Marvelous : A New York Anthology'. St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. (On the Amazon.com listing for this book, "Seau Bia" posts a review that is nothing but a plea for attention to Beau Sia.ISBN 0-312-26335-X)
- Glazner, Gary Mex, ed. Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry. San Francisco: Manic D PressManic D PressManic D Press is an American literary press based in San Francisco, California publishing fiction , poetry, cultural studies, art, narrative-oriented comix, and alternative travel trade paperbacks...
, 2000. - von Ziegesar, Cecily, ed. Slam. New York: Alloy Books, 2000. (This book also includes quotes by Sia on what poetry is, the writing process, etc.)
- Sanchez, Sonia; Medina, Tony; and Rivera, Lois Reyes, eds. Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Three Rivers Press, 2001.
- Katz, Daniel R., ed. Why Freedom Matters: The Spirit of the Declaration of Independence in Prose, Poetry, and Song from 1776 to the Present . Workman Publishing Company, 2003.
- Glazner, Gary Mex. How to Make a Living as a Poet. (Interview) Soft Skull Press, 2005.
- Brown, Derrick C. The Last American Valentine: Illustrated poems to seduce and destroy Write Bloody PublishingWrite Bloody Publishing-Authors:Authors published include: *Derrick C. Brown *Andrea Gibson*Anis Mojgani*Buddy Wakefield*Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz*Karen Finneyfrock*Lea Deschenes*Mindy Nettifee*Paul G. Maziar*Robbie Q. Telfer*Taylor Mali...
, 2008. - Eleveld, Mark, ed. "The Spoken Word Revolution Redux". Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2007
Film and television
Sia's appearances on television were on Def PoetryDef Poetry
Def Poetry, also known as Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry or Def Poetry Jam, which was co-founded by Bruce George, Danny Simmons and Deborah Pointer, is an HBO television series produced by hip-hop music entrepreneur Russell Simmons. The series presents performances by established spoken word...
; he later appeared in the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
version, Def Poetry Jam.
He appeared in Slam
Slam (film)
Slam is a 1998 independent film starring Saul Williams and Sonja Sohn. It tells the story of a young African-American man whose talent for poetry is hampered by his social background. It won the Grand Jury Prize for a Dramatic Film at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.- Synopsis :Raymond Joshua is a...
in 1998 as Jimmy Huang. The same year, he participated in the documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
SlamNation
SlamNation
SlamNation is a documentary film by director Paul Devlin. The film follows the National Poetry Slam in Portland, Oregon.It follows the 1996 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam held in Portland, OR...
as himself. Later appearances include The Manchurian Candidate
The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film)
The Manchurian Candidate is a 2004 American thriller film based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Richard Condon, and a reimagining of the previous 1962 film....
(2004) as a late-night comedian on television and
Hitch
Hitch (film)
Hitch is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Andy Tennant and starring Will Smith. The film, which was written by Kevin Bisch, co-stars Eva Mendes, Kevin James, and Amber Valletta. Smith plays a professional matchmaker who makes a living teaching men how to woo women...
(2005) as Duane Reade
Duane Reade
Duane Reade Inc., a subsidiary of the Walgreen Company, is a chain of pharmacy and convenience stores, primarily located in New York City, known for its high volume small store layouts in densely populated Manhattan locations...
Clerk.
Sia portrays the protagonist in the music video for Wolf Like Me
Wolf Like Me
"Wolf Like Me" is the first single from the TV on the Radio album Return to Cookie Mountain, released in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2006 on 4AD Records. The single's B-side was the song "Things You Can Do", which was also available as a bonus track on the U.S. release of Return to Cookie...
by the band TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio is an American art rock band formed in 2001 in Brooklyn, New York, whose music spans numerous diverse genres, from post-punk to electro and free jazz to soul music....
.
Sia plays Norman Sklear, a wedding czar emcee in Rachel Getting Married
Rachel Getting Married
Rachel Getting Married is a 2008 drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin and Debra Winger. The film was released in the U.S. to select theaters on October 3, 2008. The film opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival. The film also...
(2008)
Sia is also featured in a Trident Layers Commercial (2009)
- Glazner, Gary Mex, ed. Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2000.
- Sia, Beau. A Night Without Armor II: the Revenge. New York: Mouth Almighty Books, 1998.
- von Ziegesar, Cecily, ed. Slam. New York: Alloy Books, 2000.
Online
- Audio of "8 Year Old Reject" and "What I Did Last Summer" on Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
- Audio of "Howl," "Money," "Gym" and "G.I. Joe Freestyle" on Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel
- Mouth Almighty interview
- The Angry Poet: Beau Sia
- Beau Sia at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Article on Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam by the New York Daily NewsNew York Daily NewsThe Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
- Preview for "The Drums Inside Your Chest" Poetry concert film featuring Beau Sia
External links
- Article regarding Beau in Slam at ColorLines MagazineColorLines MagazineColorLines, founded in 1998, is an American magazine that covers race and politics in society.Articles are primarily composed of essays, investigative reports, think pieces, opinion columns, cultural criticism, fiction, and humor pieces....
- Interview by the Philadelphia City PaperPhiladelphia City PaperPhiladelphia City Paper is a free alternative news weekly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in November 1981 as a spin-off of the now defunct WXPN Express newsletter. New issues are released every Thursday....
- PlanetAUTHORity interview
- Scene Missing Magazine Interviews Beau Sia
- Is There A Future For Spoken Word? @ dropmagazine.com