Deschutes Public Library and the Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholar Program are pleased to welcome two time Individual Poetry Slam Champion Buddy Wakefield for a performance at COCC’s Hitchcock Auditorium on Thursday, February 10 at 7:00 pm. Bend spoken word poet Jason Graham will MC the event. The performance is free and open to the public.

Wakefield, who is known for delivering raw, rounded, high vibration performances of humor and heart, has been featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam In 2004 he was signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals and successfully defended that title at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands against the national champions of seven European countries. 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, including The Great Lawn in Central Park, Scotland’s Oran Mor and San Quentin State Penitentiary. Wakefield, along with fellow poets Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani, recently electrified a capacity crowd in October 2010 when their Nite Kite Revival Poetry Tour stopped in Bend.