Def Poetry Jam was a spoken word poetry television series hosted by Mos Def and airing on HBO between 2002 and 2007. Spoken word literally saved my life and changed my life. I would listen to spoken word poetry while I was working on my PhD, or relaxing, or even while I was sleeping. Those words kept me going. They also made me start writing again, when I thought I had lost my voice. Spoken word gave me back my voice. My favourite poets from the series are listed below in no particular order:
Author’s note: I edited this post in September 2026 to remove an artist accused of several incidents of serious sexual assault and have also included a few non-Def Jam poets.
Joaquin Zihuatanejo — This is a Suit
In this performance Zihuatanejo explores the narrative of Joaquín Murieta. He also honours his grandfather in its telling. I love the fact that it opens with legalese, ‘specific litigation…’ A history lesson in a few short minutes. A snapshot of a life lived.
Michael Ellison—Mezeker Means to Remember
This by Michael Ellis is a powerful meditation on the universal struggle for freedom, equality, and human endurance. One of the things I love about this performance is the use of bait and switch. I love it. Another thing is how he invites us to remember that we are one world across space and time. Memory and the failure to remember – each life makes this world richer, each loss makes it poorer.
Daniel Beaty – Knock, Knock
This is how to perform spoken word. I was spellbound when I heard this one. A personal tale of a father’s absence against a bigger picture. Knock Knock by Daniel Beaty is a moving poem that explores themes of loss, resilience, and hope through the poignant story of a father-son relationship. Drawing in part on Beaty’s own experiences, the poem ultimately conveys a powerful message: that personal and collective healing comes from transforming pain into strength and using our struggles as a source of empowerment for ourselves, our communities, and the wider world.
Sunni Patterson: A Poetic Medley
This is Ms Patterson being dazzling. With her Afro and her baby, she is speaking word, like we are sitting in her living room, but she is taking us back to the dawn of time and opening our eyes to see vistas of possible worlds before us, if we would just believe. There is a reason I love Ms Patterson. According to Sierra Leone of Oral Funk Poetry Productions, “In every word she utters, you hear the grit and grim grit and grime, hope and love, problem and solution, optimism and faith. She is a mouthpiece for the ancestors, a vessel used to promote goodness in a world where oppression and injustice seem the order of the day.”
Bassey Ikpi – Homeward
Oh! Homeward makes me cry because of my grandmother, because we live in a world that insists on labelling dualities and pluralities, because home will never stop calling, because home is more than a place and because Ms Ikpi is brilliant. Bassey Ikpi’s poem Homeward explores home as a fluid and evolving concept, deeply intertwined with questions of identity, belonging, culture, and the diasporic experience. The poem examines how our understanding and experience of home are shaped by movement, love, life, loss and an endless search for place across space and time.
This is How We Disappear – Titilope Sonuga
I love this one as much for the hope and skill as for the beautiful music underpinning it. This Is How We Disappear is at once an exploration of the physical and emotional disappearance of women and a celebration of the magic of shapeshifting as an act of survival too. We refuse to disappear.
Accents – Denice Frohman
This is a wonderfully skilful performance. Frohman brings herself into the narrative with humour and heart. Accents are about rhythms and music, and Frohman uses these to demonstrate (and not just tell us) how accents connect us to our cultural heritage. ‘My mama’s tongue is a telegram from her mother decorated with the coquis of El Campo… Her accent is a stubborn compass always pointing her toward home.’
Hollow – Vanessa Kisuule
I end with Hollow, because the poem ends so beautifully and poignantly. Vanessa Kisuule’s Hollow was written in June 2020 in response to the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol. The poem reflects on the legacy of Colston, a 17th-century slave trader whose wealth was built through the systematic exploitation, enslavement, and suffering of African people. Through its powerful imagery and critique of historical memory, Hollow challenges the glorification of figures whose fortunes were founded on violence and injustice, while inviting reflection on whose stories are commemorated in public spaces.
A footnote from Audre Lorde, who said it best:
For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the
quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and
change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
