Beau Sia

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Beau Sia
Born1976 (age 47–48)
Ohio, U.S.
OccupationPoet

Beau Sia (simplified Chinese: 谢福源; traditional Chinese: 謝福源; pinyin: Xiè Fúyuán; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Siā Hok-gôan, born 1976) is an American slam poet.

Life and career

Sia was born in

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Sia discovered spoken word poetry on MTV as a teenager. When not participating in his high school's swim team, he spent time at Oklahoma City's only open mic
night.

In 1995, Sia moved to

Asian American, something that he denied often in Oklahoma City. His cultural identity
became a common theme in his poems.

Sia began performing at the

muMs da Schemer) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam. The team went on to place third in the nation, and have a lasting impact on how people view slam poetry. In the book Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
wrote of Sia's impact, noting

Beau Sia took Maggie Estep's pop culture reference-heavy work to the next level, bouncing across the stage, frenzied and electrified. His work was confrontational, hilarious and unapologetic. Sia was a firebrand who seemed determined to smash the prevailing stereotypes of Asian-America, the ones that painted Asian-Americans as being meek, passive and voiceless.[2]

Sia's relationship with the

Poetry Slam community continued. He eventually earned two National Poetry Slam
Championships in 1997 and 2000 while competing on the NYC-Urbana national poetry slam team. He also reached second place in the Individual Poetry Slam competition in 2001.

Inspired to mischief by a reading A Night Without Armor – a book of poems by the folksinger Jewel – Sia composed a parody entitled A Night Without Armor II: The Revenge.[3] It was reviewed for Entertainment Weekly by Alexandra Jacobs, who noted, “[Sia’s] deadpan parodies of such Jewel gems as ‘God Exists Quietly’ (‘inside my underwear/why don’t you come over/and say hello’)…have quickly won a following.”[4]

Sia then began touring around Europe and the United States. He also appeared in films and published a wide range of his works in book and compact disc form. He also released an album on Mouth Almighty Records, a spoken-word imprint of Mercury/PolyGram Records that was active during the 1990s.

Style and examples

Sia's style is humorous and satirical.[according to whom?] His word choice is said to be deceptively simple.[by whom?][clarification needed]

Works

  • Sia, Beau. A Night Without Armor II: the Revenge. New York: Mouth Almighty Books, 1998.
  • Sia, Beau. Attack! Attack! Go!
    PolyGram Records
    .
  • Sia, Beau. The Undisputed Greatest Writer Of All Time. Long Beach: Write Bloody Publishing, 2012.
  • Sia, Beau. WHITE POWER. Los Angeles: Not A Cult, 2017.[5]

Inclusion in anthologies

  • Cabico, Regie and Todd Swift, eds. Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry. Vehicle Press, 1998.
  • Colby, Todd, ed. Heights of the Marvelous : A New York Anthology'. St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. (On the Amazon.com listing for this book, "Seau Bia" posts a review that is nothing but a plea for attention to Beau Sia.
    ISBN 0-312-26335-X
    )
  • Glazner, Gary Mex, ed. Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2000.
  • von Ziegesar, Cecily, ed. Slam. New York: Alloy Books, 2000. (This book also includes quotes by Sia on what poetry is, the writing process, etc.)
  • Sanchez, Sonia; Medina, Tony; and Rivera, Lois Reyes, eds. Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Three Rivers Press, 2001.
  • Katz, Daniel R., ed. Why Freedom Matters: The Spirit of the Declaration of Independence in Prose, Poetry, and Song from 1776 to the Present . Workman Publishing Company, 2003.
  • Glazner, Gary Mex. How to Make a Living as a Poet. (Interview) Soft Skull Press, 2005.
  • Brown, Derrick C. The Last American Valentine: Illustrated poems to seduce and destroy Write Bloody Publishing, 2008.
  • Eleveld, Mark, ed. "The Spoken Word Revolution Redux". Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2007

Film and television

Sia's appearances on television were on

Def Poetry; he later appeared in the Broadway version, Def Poetry Jam
.

He appeared in Slam in 1998 as Jimmy Huang. The same year, he participated in the documentary SlamNation as himself. Later appearances include The Manchurian Candidate (2004) as a late-night comedian on television and Hitch (2005) as Duane Reade Clerk.

Sia portrays the protagonist in the music video for Wolf Like Me by the band TV on the Radio.

Sia portrays a minor character, Cicero, in Jeremy Saulnier's directorial debut, Murder Party (2007).

Sia plays Norman Sklear, a wedding czar emcee in Rachel Getting Married (2008).

In 2015, Sia appeared in yet another Jonathan Demme film, Ricki and the Flash, followed by a recurring role on the web series Pretty Dudes alongside such actors as Dion Basco and Yoshi Sudarso.

Video games

Sia, in collaboration with former Gearbox Software writer Anthony Burch, created the narrative for the exploration video game Failsafe.[6]

References

  1. ^ Nguyen, Joe (2009-05-05). "Spoken word artist Beau Sia comes to Denver". AsiaXpress.com. Archived from the original on 2010-01-02. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
  2. ISBN 1-933368-82-9
    .
  3. ^ [1] [dead link]
  4. ^ Jacobs, Alexandra, “Beau Jest,” Entertainment Weekly, September 25, 1998.
  5. ^ "WHITE POWER - not a cult". Archived from the original on 2017-06-11. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  6. ^ "Failsafe will feature Avatar: The Last Airbender actor and lots of puzzles Archived 2016-08-08 at the Wayback Machine" on Polygon.com"

Bibliography

Online

External links

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