Buddy Wakefield
BUDDY WAKEFIELD is the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and most recently signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then successfully defended that title at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands against the national champions of seven European countries with works translated into Dutch.
In 2005 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship again and has gone on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in hundreds of venues internationally from The Great Lawn in Central Park and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and First Avenue.
In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, WA, sold or gave away everything he owned, moved to the small town of Honda Civic and set out to live for a living, touring North American poetry venues through 2003. He still tours full time and considers annual Revival tours with Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani, as well as separate tours with Ani DiFranco, to be the highlight of his career thus far.
Born in Shreveport, LA, mostly raised in Baytown, TX, now claiming Seattle, WA as home, Buddy has been a busker in Amsterdam, a lumberjack in Norway, a street vendor in Spain, a team leader in Singapore, a re-delivery boy, a candy maker, a street sweeper, a bartender, a maid, a construction worker, a bull rider, a triathlete and a sucker for anything unfolding. And for peanut butter. And hygiene. Wakefield is a writer, the elated son of a guitar repair woman, wingman of Giant Saint Everything, and remembers Kirkwood, NY. Sanborn too.
Buddy, a Board of Directors member with Youth Speaks Seattle, is honored to be published internationally in dozens of books with work used to win multiple national collegiate debate and forensics competitions. An author of Write Bloody Publishing, Wakefield is known for delivering raw, rounded, high vibration performances of humor and heart.
“I should have told You before talking in terms of Foreverthat any given day wears me out and works me sour,that there are nights when the sky is so clear I stand obnoxious underneath it begging for the stars to shoot at me just so I can feel at Home.”
“This is an apology letter to the both of us for how long it took me to let things go.”
“Step into this experiencewith the goose bumpsin your heartbeat”
“On the face of her phoneWileen programs a message to herselfso that when the alarm clock ringsthe screen flashes:EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS.EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS.For some peoplehappinessit's just a reduction in suffering.Jordan.Jordan tattoos the wordsFORGIVE MEin thick black lettersdown the inside of his armso that when he looks at his wristhe will remember not to hate himself so much.What he keeps forgettingis that there is life after survival.”
“I have realized that the moondid not have to be full for us to love it.That we are not tragediesstranded here beneath it.”
“I no longer need you to fuck me as hard as I hated myself.”
“And I know I’m not perfect. But I believe I was meant to be.”
“Well this is me without my prozac, and this is me just shy of nicotine, and mother fuckers, it’s my second time to fail anger management class.”
“I’ve seen fish hooked who keep more patience in their worst gill than some of you have in your best moods. If you were a sandwich at McDonalds, they’d call you the McGrump.”
“Dear Angry Older People, over 21-ish, anyone who considers themselves an adult, still bitter: Next time you're wondering what wrong with kids today, you might wanna check the examples you've been giving us to work with. Because if you ever want to make sense of us, you’ve got to make sense to us, without telling us you’re too old to walk that far. You’ve got to try to understand why we like looking like rag dolls, why we like looking like the way we feel, and why we keep our senses floored when it’s you behind the wheel. And if you ever really do want to understand why we seem so angry, well for one, you told us we could be anything we wanted to be, but right now, we’re a little busy dodging bombs.”
“If we were created in God’s image, then when God was a child he smushed fire ants with his fingertips and avoided tough questions.”
“Lord, let me write,leave me autistic and typinguntil my windows bust into a thousand silver dovesand I know the poem is done.”
“Tell me my heart beats a war drumthat my eyes are not just armiesbut my spineis a harpoon.”
“I am standing like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf hoping that one day someone will pick me to make things better.”
“Everyone has some they can't contain.”
“I'm gonna roll outta here one day, I just might not get to drive”