Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Verbal Blend, Imagining America, Voices Merging will host Ayo Technology Skype open mic

Wednesday, September 14, 2011, By News Staff
Share

Verbal Blend, a spoken word poetry program out of Syracuse University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, will host its annual Ayo Technology Skype Open Mic, in collaboration with Voices Merging at the University of Minnesota and Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (IA).

ayoOn Sept. 22 at 8:30 p.m., two spoken word poetry student groups, Verbal Blend at Syracuse University and Voices Merging at University of Minnesota, will perform for live audiences at their respective campuses while also using mobile devices, laptops and Skype technology to broadcast their performances to remote audiences in Syracuse and Minneapolis. The poets will address Imagining America 2011 conference’s central question: “What Sustains Us?” At SU, the event will take place in Stolkin Auditorium in the Physics Building. It will be hosted by Janel Sullivan, a senior in The College of Arts and Sciences.

Cedric T. Bolton, coordinator of student engagement in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, co-founded Voices Merging in 2002 at the University of Minnesota; Verbal Blend in 2007 at SU; and the Syracuse University Poet’s Learning Community in 2010. Bolton and IA Associate Director Kevin Bott will moderate the event and engage one another, the poets and the audience on various topics, including the potential uses of technology in civic engagement initiatives, the impact of sharing through art with students in distant locations, and the ways students might see their work as contributing to larger conversations about civic identity and democratic life.

Verbal Blend is a spoken-word poetry program designed to enhance students’ confidence in writing and performing original poems. The program is composed of a six-week workshop series on poetry forms, formats, journal entries and peer-reviews.

Participants have showcased their work at public venues, such as themed open mic nights; Light Work’s 2009 night artist reading/reception with Admas Habteslasie; day workshop with poet Quyarsh Ali Lansana; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at the Carrier Dome; “Get on the Bus for Poetry;” Take the Mic Poetry Slam; and a special reading with Tracy Sugarman, author of “We had sneaker, they had guns.”

For more information, contact Bolton at 443-9676, or ctbolton@syr.edu. To join the Verbal Blend conversation on Facebook, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Verbal-Blend-Poets/116460825041543.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • 2 Whitman Students Earn Prestigious AWESOME Scholarship
    Tuesday, June 17, 2025, By News Staff
  • Whitman’s Johan Wiklund Named a Top Scholar Globally for Business Research Publications
    Tuesday, June 17, 2025, By Caroline K. Reff
  • Katsitsatekanoniahkwa Destiny Lazore ’26 Receives Prestigious Udall Scholarship
    Tuesday, June 17, 2025, By Jen Plummer
  • WiSE Hosts the 2025 Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Undergraduate Research Prize Award Ceremony
    Friday, June 13, 2025, By News Staff
  • Inaugural Meredith Professor Faculty Fellows Announced
    Friday, June 13, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In Arts & Culture

2 Whitman Students Earn Prestigious AWESOME Scholarship

For the first time in the 12-year history of the program, both nominees from the Whitman School of Management have been selected as recipients of the 2025 AWESOME Excellence in Education Scholarship, a prestigious honor awarded to top-performing undergraduate women…

Whitman’s Johan Wiklund Named a Top Scholar Globally for Business Research Publications

The Whitman School of Management’s Distinguished Professor Johan Wiklund was recently listed as one of the most prolific business and economic research scholars globally, according to “What We Know About the Science of Science in Business and Economics? Insights From…

Katsitsatekanoniahkwa Destiny Lazore ’26 Receives Prestigious Udall Scholarship

Katsitsatekanoniahkwa Destiny Lazore, a rising senior communication and rhetorical studies major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and political science major in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences (with a…

Inaugural Meredith Professor Faculty Fellows Announced

Three professors have been named Meredith Professor Faculty Fellows. Part of the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorship Program, the Faculty Fellows program was launched this year. Fellows will work in partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning…

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go Orange! Faculty and Staff at the Syracuse WorkForce Run (Gallery)

The Syracuse WorkForce Run was held at Onondaga Lake Parkway Tuesday, bringing together workers from across Central New York for a night of food, fun, fitness and friendly competition among area employers. This year’s event, which raised funds for Ronald…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.