SpokenHeard with Brian McCracken and Susan Dobbe Chase

Brian McCracken is a neurodiverse butterfly on fire who manages to camouflage himself adequately. Except when he’s on stage. Brian's poetry speaks on subjects from radical leftist organizing to mad pride and healing from trauma. Brian's current artistic projects include made pride activism through poetry as a member of Blue Room Manifesto with friend and comrade Cecily Schuler. As a poet, Brian is Oly’s 1st Grand Slam champion and representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam. He competed on Seattle Poetry Slam's 2014 National Poetry Slam Team under the leadership of Seattle activist and mayoral candidate, Nikkita Oliver, ranking 8th in the nation. Brian also coached and competed on Olympia's 2015 and '16 team, and is coaching the newly formed 2017 Olympia Slam Team as well. As an organizer and educator, Brian founded Old Growth Poetry Collective, Oly's hub of performance poetry community through its weekly show, Olympia People’s Mic. Brian is a co-founder of the Cascadia Regional Poetry Slam and has invigorated networks of mutual aid and support with pietry organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest. He teaches poetry professionally to youth and young adults throughout the Pacific Northwest, and was a finalist for the Rain City Slam 2017 Teaching Fellowship Brian believes in the power of spoken word poetry to self-actualuze and empower young people while simultaneously fighting systems of oppression. Brian has been published in Activist Writers, Calliope, Underground Voices, Works in Progress, and three self-published chapbooks, Dotted Lines: A Roadside Manifesto for Word Bleeders, If a Caterpillar Flaps Its Wings and Age[nts] of [In]sanity. Brian us currently taking vitamin D supplements while being regularly drenched in Olympia, WA while staying alive with polyamory, sci-fi, and the actual best dog.