In this collection of poems, Andrea Thompson investigates the intersection of page and stage, and the evolution of spoken word as a hybrid form of literary orature. Thompson’s collection blurs the space between public and private, while excavating the influence of Black North American history, art and culture on contemporary poetics. From the slave songs and spirituals of the cotton fields of the Old South, to the smoky coffee houses of the Harlem Renaissance, to today’s slam stages and rap battles, these poems elevate the written and spoken word as vehicles for individual empowerment, collective agency and social justice. Thompson asks us: Why speak? Why write? And then takes us on a journey spanning decades, generations and cultures in the exploration of possible answers.

Andrea Thompson is one of the most well known poets in the Canadian spoken word scene and has performed her poetry at venues across North America and overseas for the past twenty years. Thompson’s debut poetry collection, Eating the Seed (2000), has been featured on the reading list at the University of Toronto, and at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and her spoken word CD One, was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award in 2005. One of the pioneers of the SLAM poetry scene in Canada, Thompson was awarded the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s Poet of Honour: For Outstanding Achievement in the Art of Spoken Word in 2009. Thompson is the co-editor of the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out (Inanna, 2010), and is a recent graduate of the University of Guelph’s MFA Creative Writing program. She currently teaches Spoken Word: Poetry and Performance through the Ontario College of Art and Design’s Continuing Studies Department. Over Our Heads is her first novel. Andrea lives in Toronto, Ontario.

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