About the Artist

MICHELLE MYERS is an award-winning poet, community activist, and educator.  As a founding member of the Asian American female spoken word poetry group Yellow Rage, she was one of the first Asian American women to appear on HBO’s Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry; in the first live Def Poetry Jam show presented at the 2001 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado; and in the Def Poetry Jam College Tour.  For over 20 years, Michelle has featured at hundreds of college campuses as well as at many distinguished venues around the country, including the Kennedy Center, BAMcafé, Bowery Poetry Club, Asian American Writers Workshop, Sierra Arts Foundation, Japanese American National Museum, and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience. Employing multiple poetic forms and delivery styles—including narrative, folk arts/storytelling, hip-hop-influenced rhyme, and song—Michelle attempts to employ the raw and intimate power of spoken word poetry in the hopes of taking audiences on an unforgettable journey that educates, challenges, and inspires.

AS A SOLO ARTIST, Michelle has received numerous grants and awards, including a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Finalist Award (2024), a Transformation Award (2014) and an Art and Change Grant (2011) by the Leeway Foundation and a Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship First Alternate (2018) and Honorable Mention (2014) by The Loft Literary Center.  Her work has been published in Apiary, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Title Magazine, Brevity, and USA Today.  In 2020, she was selected as a Dodge Poet by the Dodge Poetry Program, an affiliate of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and featured as a Festival Poet in the 2020 Dodge Poetry Festival.  Her work has also received recognition by the Smithsonian Channel, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia Jazz Project, and WHYY Philadelphia. In 2022, Michelle’s poetry was featured in the NY Times bestseller Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now as well as in the print and audiobook versions of My Life: Growing Up Asian in America. Michelle appears on the cover of the paperback version of My Life, released in April 2023. Michelle’s TEDx Talk for TEDxJeffersonU “Let Hearts Love. Let Hearts Live” debuted on the TEDx YouTube Channel in December 2023. She currently hosts a podcast called Mind Your Margins, which is produced by her daughter, Myong. 

MICHELLE’S CREATIVE WORK also informs her position as an Associate Professor in the English Department at Community College of Philadelphia where she has received recognition, including the 2024 Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award; a 2023-24 Octavius Catto Legacy Award for Advocacy; a 2018 President’s Award for Excellence in Service to the College; a 2016 President’s Award for Excellence in Fostering Student Success; a six-time Emmy Nomination for the Drop the Mic Spoken Word Poetry Competition television program that she hosted and co-created; and a 2010 Student Club Advisor of the Year Award (Spoken Word Poetry Club). Born in Seoul, South Korea to a Korean mother and a white American father serving in the United States Air Force, Michelle draws from her personal experiences as a biracial Korean American woman to write poetry that challenges mainstream misconceptions of Asianness and explores the intersections of race, culture, gender, community, and self.  She believes in the transformative power of spoken word poetry.