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interviewsInterview With We Got Issues!
Interview With Tara BettsI recently had the great pleasure of hanging out one sunny Saturday at Brooklyn Botanic Gardens with two of New York’s most incredible poets: Tara Betts and Rich Villar. Tara and I had arranged to meet to talk about her upcoming tour of the DC area and her work, so Mr. Villar quietly listened (some people reading this might find that hard to believe, but it was true! ... and those of you who don’t know Rich should check him out and Acentos, the poetry series he hosts in the Bronx), while we talked about seeking out new people, places and experiences to feed your art, dancing with Assata Shakur in Cuba, and women helping each other to articulate their experiences and to find better paths through life. Interview With Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (March 2006)
Interview With Yvonne O! Etaghene (September 2005)
Interview With the Original Woman (July 2005)
Interview With Ali Liebegott, Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin (March 2005)
by Susan Chenelle There are times when I wish I did live on the West Coast, like when New York gets hit with snow and freezing rain three weekends in a row. Or when three awesome women artists like Michelle Tea, Ali Liebegott, and Laurenn McCubbin team up to show off their fabulous new books, and Boulder is as far east as they're going. Sigh, but at least I was fortunate enough to catch up with them via email before they hit the road, and now you can too. To find out more about their work and how amazing they are, click here. Interview With Sholeh Wolpé (January 2005)
Interview With Corrina Bain (December 2004)
Interview With Rachel Kann (November 2004)
Interview With Daphne Gottlieb (November 2003)
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We Got Issues! isn’t your average spoken-word tour. It’s rather a “performance and civic participation project” conceived and undertaken by several women artists and activists – including Rha Goddess, Jennifer Calderon aka J-Love, and Phakiso “Kiki” Collins.
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Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is "pretty much always on the move." The Chinese/Taiwanese American spoken word artist frequently travels between her two hometowns, New York and Chicago, remaining deeply connected to both communities, both of which fuel her art and activism. And she's increasingly in demand nearly every place else these days, having featured at 135 performances across the country and on two seasons of "Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry." Her first full-length play, "Murder the Machine," will be excerpted at Chicago's first Hip Hop Theater Festival in May 2006. Catch her online at 
Yvonne O! Etaghene, a.k.a. Fly, is a self-described "poetess, freedom fighter, actress, playwright, dancer." Before embarking on her second tour of the year, she checked in via email with Letsdoitontheroad.com and featured at Words of Wisdom at Spoken-Words Café in Brooklyn, where she blew the roof off and set the place on fire, not just with anger, but with fierce love, too. (She also schooled yours truly and the rest of the audience on how to pronounce her name: It's e-TA-GHE-ne ... get it right!) Find out more about Fly and her work (and her upcoming 2006 tour) at her website: 
On stage, the Original Woman, a.k.a., Nitche Ward, confesses, "I have to tell the truth. I'm not really a poet. I'm a people's soldier. I only use poetry as a tool to mobilize the people." This native of North Carolina, has been educating, training, and mobilizing since 1996. She also co-chairs a five-location spoken-word series with Queen Sheba, Kwintessential and HBO's Punany Poet Mo' Browne, called "Sistah Cypher: Women Empowerment Through Spoken Word," hosted out of Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; Durham, NC; Norfolk, VA; and London, UK. You can find out more about her and her two spoken-word CDs, "The Messenger of Truth" and "Life—By Any Means Necessary," on her website: 
Born in Persia, Sholeh Wolpé spent most of her teen years in the Caribbean and Europe, before arriving in the U.S. where she pursued Masters degrees in Radio-TV-Film and Public Health. Her most recent book of poetry is 
Corrina Bain is a Worcester, Mass., born-and-bred poet who has been performing poetry since the age of 14. She has participated on three National Poetry Slam teams, most recently representing Providence, RI, this year, and she is the assistant coordinator of the Worcester Youth Poetry Collective. Her work appears in several anthologies. And she is only 21. In January, she embarks by bus on the second half of her first national tour, with Mallory Kaczmarek. Letsdoitontheroad.com checked in with her via email before she hit the road.
Rachel Kann is the founder and host of the monthly co-lab:ORATION Series held at Los Angeles' Temple Bar. She has produced two spoken-word CDs, including the brand-new "Word to the WHY'S," and several chapbooks. Letsdoitontheroad.com caught up with her on her recent swing through New York. She returns home to co-lab on December 5. To find out more about her, view video clips of her performances or snag copies of her CDs and chapbooks, visit her website 
San Francisco-based writer Daphne Gottlieb's work has appeared on Nerve.com and in numerous journals and anthologies. She won the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Press Special Recognition Award, and was short-listed for the 2002 Lambda for Best Lesbian Poetry. She also co-organized the first conference of women spoken-word artists in September 2002,