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never let a man dictate your wingspan
or your footwear.
or your footwear.
("Joan of Arc to the $2,000-an-hour woman")
Marty McConnell’s work explores the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion, and history.
Using the perspectives of figures as diverse as Catholic saints, pop culture icons, and the population of the traditional tarot deck, McConnell’s poems both comment on and illuminate what it means to live in early 21st century America, a period marked by both an expanded concept of human interaction – the first Black President, gay marriage at the cusp of legalization, the explosion of communication through technology – and vehement, sometimes violent efforts by select populations to protect the status quo and even return the country to its segregated, repressive past.
McConnell transplanted herself from Chicago to New York City in 1999, after completing the first of three national tours with the Morrigan, an all-female performance poetry troupe she co-founded. She received her MFA in creative writing/poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and competed in six National Poetry Slams with the NYC/louderARTS team.
For nearly a decade, she co-curated the flagship reading series of the New York City-based louderARTS Project, which featured poets including Yusef Komunyakaa, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, and more. She appeared on both the second and fifth seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. She returned to Chicago in 2009 to co-found Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word.
She has performed and facilitated workshops at schools and festivals around the country, including The Dodge Poetry Festival, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Wicker Park Arts Festival, Connecticut Poetry Festival, Cornell University, University of Utah, James Madison University, Old Dominion, University of Connecticut, University of Arkansas, DePaul University, and more.
Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Movement, Spoken Word Revolution Redux, Women of the Bowery, Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, Bullets and Butterflies: Queer Spoken Word Poetry, Will Work for Peace, Women.Period and In Our Own Words: Poetry of Generation X, as well as journals including Salt Hill Review, Rattapallax, Fourteen Hills, Pedestal, Boxcar Poetry Review, The November 3rd Club, Thirteenth Moon, 2River View, Lodestar Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, and Rattle.
Her poetry has been cited in nonfiction works ranging from "How to Read the Oral Poem" (by John Miles Foley, University of Illinois Press, 2002,) to "The God of Yes: Living the Life You Were Promised" (by David Edwards, Howard Publishing, 2003). Her poem, "marrying the violence," was named "Best of the Net" in 2007, and Bob Holman of About.com selected her CD, "the swallowed vowel" as one of the best spoken word CDs of that year.
After two years of working with underserved NYC youth as associate director of Urban Word NYC, legendary film and television producer Norman Lear tapped her to be one of four poets creating the spoken word portion of Declare Yourself, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign aiming to energize and empower young voters to participate in the political process in the 2004 election year. She now lives in Chicago, and travels the country performing and leading workshops.
