The keynote speaker for the upcoming CASE Conference -- "What does it mean to be an American?" -- is Kevin Coval, a nationally-renown spoken-word poet, commentator and teacher.
Kevin Coval is the author of everyday people (EM Press, Nov.'08) and slingshots (a hip-hop poetica) (EM Press, Nov. '05), named Book of the Year-finalist by The American Library Association. He recently released an mp3 collection Parting the Red, White and Blues: A Meditation on American History. Coval's poems have appeared in many publications, periodicals and journals. He is a contributor to The Huffington Post, can be heard regularly on National Public Radio in Chicago, and has performed his poetry on four continents in seven countries. He also performed on and served as artistic consultant for Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry Jam. Coval is the co-founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, and is poet-in-residence at The Jane Addams’ Hull House Museum at The University of Illinois-Chicago and at The University of Chicago’s Newberger Hillel Center. He also teaches at The School of the Art Institute.
“[Kevin Coval is] the new voice of Chicago…brilliant, funny, magnificent and intensely personal…[His work] should stand up there with the work of Carl Sandburg, and I don’t say that lightly.” -Rick Kogan, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune
“Coval echoes Allen Ginsburg in his spiritual revolt, cosmic vision and longing for multicultural transcendence. Boldly beautiful and outspoken hip-hop manifestos…and a Studs Terkelesque openness to humankind’s countless stories fuel Coval’s percussive calls for compassion and connection.” -Donna Seaman, American Library Association Booklist
