MICHAEL CIRELLI is the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, an award-winning youth literary arts organization, and also the author of Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics (Milk Mug 2004), a standards-based teaching curriculum that engages the intersection between hip-hop and “classic” poetry. His first collection of poems, Lobster with Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Hanging Loose, 2008), was a NY Times Best Seller for independent presses. He is a veteran of the National Poetry Slam scene, and was the only person to win the Grand Slam Finals in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley all in the same year. His poems have been featured in numerous journals and anthologies, along with articles on his work in Poets & Writers, World Literature Today, Spoken Word Revolution and King Magazine. He was also featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and has his MFA in poetry from the New School. His second collection of poems, Vacations on the Black Star Line (Hanging Loose, 2009) is due out this fall. He lives in Brooklyn.