Spiking the Sucker Punch is the debut work of longtime Chicago performance poet and youth arts organizer, Robbie Q. Telfer. The event includes readings from the book, performances by youth and adult poets, and the work of trained house cats.

“You won’t find another poet haunting the bars and coffee shops with as much humor in his verse as Telfer… a seasoned comedian’s presence on stage, at once unassuming and unpredictable.”
-”Time Out Chicago

From the back cover:

“This gloriously bellowed lyrical and linguistic chaos, this “mess of crossed wires and mixed seagulls,” will make your status quo ache, your perceptions implode, your horizons widen and shatter. Robbie Q. writes us toward a primal need, the need to go absolutely insane with the possibilities of noun, verb and participles of the dangled variety. This is not spoken word on the page… this is spoken scream headed directly for that corner of your head you try to hide.”
-”Patricia Smith, author of Blood Dazzler, National Book Award Finalist

“Robbie Q, our dazzling shooting star sparking the gritty Chicago heavens, crackling with the surprising and contradictory rhythms of life on the run and in the heat. Keep on, Brother Q, dance the dialectic, your wild inspired unruly convergence and conspiracy. Write on, Robbie Q, poems to spin us around, words, large enough and true. Q-man, quirky and quixotic--- quo vadis Robbie Q? Take me there, too.”
-”Bill Ayers, Activist, Educator, Co-Author of Race Course Against White Supremacy

About the author:

Robbie Q. Telfer is a touring performance poet, having been a featured performer/reader in hundreds of venues across North America and Germany - most recently with the annual Revival Tour. Previous work appears in the American Book Review, Octopus Magazine, cream city review and decomP magazinE, as well as several anthologies and DVDs. He was an individual finalist at the National Poetry Slam in 2007 and he co-wrote the video game Ninjatown DS. He lives in Chicago where he co-curates the Encyclopedia Show and is the Director of Performing Arts for Young Chicago Authors, a not-for-profit that gives creative writing opportunities and mentorship to Chicago teens. His work with YCA was featured in two documentaries from HBO and Siskel Jacobs Productions. This is his first collection of published poetry.

Recorded Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at Chopin Theatre.