Talking With Poets: Rico Frederick at Nitty Gritty Slam

Hudson Mohawk Magazine

Thom Francis introduces us to Rico Frederick who was the featured poet at Nitty Gritty Slam #75 on August 5, 2014, at The Low Beat in Albany, NY. --- Nitty Gritty Slam was a joint project between Albany Poets, Urban Guerrilla Theatre, and the Frequency North Reading Series at The College Saint Rose. The poetry slam brought together artists from academia, the local spoken word community, and visiting writers from across the country on 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month. NGS started in 2011 with a goal of sending the first team from Albany to the National Poetry Slam. All together, the Capital Region was represented three times at Nationals. On Tuesday, August 5, 2014, Rico Frederick was the featured poet at Nitty Gritty Slam #75 at The Low Beat in Albany, NY. Rico Frederick is a graphic designer and the author of the book Broken Calypsonian (Penmanship Books, 2014), holds an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute, a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Finalist, Fulbright semi-finalist, Cave Canem Fellow, Poets House Emerging Poets Fellow, Pushcart nominee, and the first poet to represent all four original New York City poetry venues at the National Poetry Slam. His poems, artistic work, and short film have been featured in the New York Times, Muzzle, Epiphany, No Dear Magazine, The Big Apple Film Festival, an Academy of American Poets Contest - Honorable Mention, Best of the Net Anthology Nominee (poetry) 2017 and elsewhere. Rico is a Trinidadian transplant, lives in New York, loves gummy bears, and scribbles poems on the back of maps in the hope they will take him someplace new.