Kevin Coval, HBO Def Poet and founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, reads from his newest work, Everyday People.

Kevin Coval is Author of Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica), named Book of the Year-finalist by The American Library Association, and his latest work, Everyday People. Coval has performed at universities, high schools and theaters on four continents in seven countries including; The Parliament of the World’s Religions in Capetown, South Africa, The African Hip-Hop Festival: Battle Cry, Poetry Society of London, Yale, Steppenwolf Theater, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Stanford, St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, India, and four seasons of Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry Jam, for which he also serves as artistic consultant. Founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, Coval is faculty at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago and Minister of Hip-Hop Poetics at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. For over ten years has been teaching hip-hop poetics in high schools and colleges around the country.

Recorded Thursday, September 18, 2008 at Northbrook Public Library.