Artist Biography
Shayna SheNess Israel, a Brooklyn native born to a Belizean mother and a Southern Black father, is an accomplished poet, arts educator, rapper and founder. As an artist whose work is, at times, powerfully reminiscent of Black Arts Movement literature and golden era hip hop, Shayna continues to write womyn into the center of her work, believing that it is crucial to restore importance to womyn narratives.
She has performed at the Nuyorican Café, Tritone, Rotunda, Black Women's Arts Festival, Mama's in the Hip Hop Kitchen, 2009 LGBTQ Womyn of Color Conference, Chico State University and Haverford, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr Colleges. Her work can be found in an upcoming anthology on black womyn writers edited by Dr. Nagueyalti Warren of Emory University, JENdA—an African-American womyn’s journal—and Issue 10 of the Origami Condom Literary Journal.
Shayna SheNess Israel has released an audio compilation of her rap, poetry and teachings titled Da Ghetto Intellectual Mixtape and is the author of three self-published works of poetry printed by Xlibris: Just-Is: A Story, Project on Love & Chapbook Triad. Additionally, she co-heads a collective that hosts multimedia performances and streamlines resources particular to independent artists called the New Media Initiative (www.newmediainitiative.com).
Admitting her penchant for form poetry, which she notes is also found in rap, she advocates for apprenticeship-style, mentoring relationships between generations of artists as a way to continue poetry’s rich tradition in all of its forms—contemporary and ancient—a tradition that allows its practitioners to continue as well as transform its aesthetic. This vision is among many and more to come as Shayna opens herself as a conduit for the Muse, the Mother Spirit, the Ancestors to flow through and work.
Currently, Shayna SheNess Israel lives in Swarthmore, working as a Resident Tutor and Mentor in the A Better Chance Strath Haven Boarding School Program.
She has performed at the Nuyorican Café, Tritone, Rotunda, Black Women's Arts Festival, Mama's in the Hip Hop Kitchen, 2009 LGBTQ Womyn of Color Conference, Chico State University and Haverford, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr Colleges. Her work can be found in an upcoming anthology on black womyn writers edited by Dr. Nagueyalti Warren of Emory University, JENdA—an African-American womyn’s journal—and Issue 10 of the Origami Condom Literary Journal.
Shayna SheNess Israel has released an audio compilation of her rap, poetry and teachings titled Da Ghetto Intellectual Mixtape and is the author of three self-published works of poetry printed by Xlibris: Just-Is: A Story, Project on Love & Chapbook Triad. Additionally, she co-heads a collective that hosts multimedia performances and streamlines resources particular to independent artists called the New Media Initiative (www.newmediainitiative.com).
Admitting her penchant for form poetry, which she notes is also found in rap, she advocates for apprenticeship-style, mentoring relationships between generations of artists as a way to continue poetry’s rich tradition in all of its forms—contemporary and ancient—a tradition that allows its practitioners to continue as well as transform its aesthetic. This vision is among many and more to come as Shayna opens herself as a conduit for the Muse, the Mother Spirit, the Ancestors to flow through and work.
Currently, Shayna SheNess Israel lives in Swarthmore, working as a Resident Tutor and Mentor in the A Better Chance Strath Haven Boarding School Program.
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