Kyle Tran Myhre
Presenter:
“Spoken Word Poetry as Practice and Culture”
Kyle Tran Myhre (also known as Guante) is a poet, educator, and activist based in Minneapolis, MN. His work explores the relationships between identity, power, and resistance. He has performed everywhere from the United Nations, to music festivals like Eaux Claires and Soundset, to countless colleges, universities, and conferences.
A member of two National Poetry Slam championship teams, Tran Myhre also completed his Masters studies at the University of Minnesota with a focus on spoken word, critical pedagogy, and social justice education. In that spirit, his performances use poems as doorways into dialogue, critical thinking, and community-building. Whether writing about men’s roles in ending gender violence, challenging dominant narratives related to race and racism, or just telling stories about the different jobs he’s had, Tran Myhre strives to cultivate a deeper, more critical engagement with social justice issues, one based in both empathy and agency.
His latest book, Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, but Enough (2022 Button Poetry), is a sci-fi-flavored exploration of the role that art and artists play in resisting authoritarianism. Featuring poems, essays, theater elements, and visual art, the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe ode to Hip Hop, and part “Letters to a Young Poet”-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it’s also a one-of-a-kind practitioners’ take on poetry, power, and possibility.
Regarding his presentation, Guante said “My goal is to focus on the spoken word: the idea of performance and how writing can ‘live’ in other spaces besides the page. Across the globe, the spoken word movement has reignited poetry as a force for artistic expression, critical dialogue, and community-building. As both a specific form (writing poetry that is meant to be shared aloud) and a deeper cultural practice (tracing its roots back millennia), spoken word creates space for all of us to tell our stories, make our values concrete, and speak up about the issues and ideas that matter to us.”