SUICIDEKINGS

The Suicide Kings are a spoken word powerhouse comprised of three award-winning Poetry Slam Champions out of Oakland, CA. On one pivotal night in 2000, Rupert Estanislao, Geoff Trenchard and Jamie DeWolf crossed paths. All of them had notebooks in their back pockets crammed full of confessional verse. They formed a pact: to bring a new hardcore sensibility to the world of poetry. The Suicide Kings were born into the world of poetry slams--a competitive barroom battle of wits and rapid monologues that has become an underground phenomenon over the last ten years.---The Kings have been described by a college newspaper as the "freaks and wild children of the slam poetry world...Inviting the Suicide Kings to perform is almost like taking the bearded lady, an organ grinders monkey and a drunk to a funeral, you know something's going to happen but it's just too damn funny to stop it.". Contra Costa Times said, "The profane yet sometimes profound group entertains with a helter-skelter mix of shock theater, oddball comedy, vaudevillian antics, on-stage debauchery, a bit of self-help therapy, and yes, even poetry."---The trio began to travel to stages across the U.S. and "started to get the national infamy they have long since achieved locally" (SF Express). Within two years they had performed live at San Quentin Penitentiary, HBO's Def Poetry Jam, UPN's "Strange and Unusual Television", NPR, Live 105's BFD Concert, and their work was broadcast on college radio and pirate stations from the Mid-West to the Philippines. A poem by the Kings based on Estanislao's personal past experiences as a gang member has been turned into a short film about guns directed by Ramsel Cruz, entitled "The Question".---They performed and led slam poetry workshops at over sixty universities and high schools across the U.S, including Stanford University, University of Normal Illinois, Cal Poly, San Francisco State University, University of Minnesota, U.C Berkeley, and Chico State. The Kings were featured performers at the NACA College Conference and APCA College Conference their first year of application. They continue to develop original curriculum and mentor young writers in the Bay Area through Youthspeaks and Opera Piccolo in after school writing programs.---They continue to tour the U.S telling their stories and confessions in high schools, bars, clubs, colleges, and theatres, balancing complex verse on the tip of their tongues, carving out a new mark in the world of literature inspiring Stanford University Radio to state, "The Suicide Kings are the tattooed knuckles under the velvet glove of American poetry."---Contact the Suicide Kings at [email protected] or (510) 938 3364