Kealoha (poet)

Kealoha
Kealoha in Honolulu, 2007
Background information
Birth name	Steven Kealohapauʻole Hong-Ming Wong
Genres	Slam Poetry Spoken word Performance Poetry
Occupation(s)	Poet Laureate Slam Poet Storyteller Speaker Educator Actor
Instruments	Vocals `Ukulele
Website	Official Site

Kealoha (born Steven Kealohapauʻole Hong-Ming Wong) is the first Poet Laureate of Hawaii and the first poet to perform at a Hawaii governor’s inauguration. He is an internationally acclaimed poet and storyteller who has performed throughout the world from the White House to ‘Iolani Palace and including hundreds of live venues. In 2010, he was honored as a "National Slam Legend" at the National Poetry Slam and was selected as a master artist for a National Endowment for the Arts program. In the genre of storytelling, he has gained national recognition by showcasing at events such as the National Storytelling Network Conference, the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, and the Honolulu Storytelling Festival.

He is of multi-ethnic heritage with Hawaiian, Chinese, and Caucasian descent. With a degree in Nuclear Engineering from MIT in 1999 [1], Kealoha has developed a poetic style that combines analysis with creative writing to investigate social, personal, and philosophical themes. He is the founder of HawaiiSlam, First Thursdays, and Youth Speaks Hawai`i.

His best known work is the performance poem Dichotomy (a.k.a. Hawaiian in the 21st Century), an identity piece that demonstrates conflicting arguments within the Native Hawaiian community. Written in 2004, Dichotomy has been used in classrooms throughout the state of Hawaii to spark debate and dialogue within Hawai`i's youth. Dichotomy debuted outside of Hawai`i in 2007 at the National Poetry Slam, helping Kealoha to place 8th individually out of over 350 of the world's best slam poets.

Other signature pieces include Recess (an uplifting piece that reminisces about playing on the playground and warns the audience not to fall into complacency), The Male Feminist (an empathetic male's perspective on violence towards women), Destiny (a philosophical investigation of the popular notion of destiny), Zoom Out (an existential look at the way we live our lives), and Chances (a piece that uses the probability of our individual existences to deliver an inspiring message).

Kealoha currently lives in Honolulu, and serves as HawaiiSlam's SlamMaster. He hosts the First Thursdays poetry slam at Fresh Cafe, which is the largest registered poetry slam in the world (with an average attendance of 500+). He did nuclear fusion research, management consulting, and surf instructing prior to making a living as a professional slam poet in 2002.

Biography

Early life

Kealoha was born and raised in Honolulu, HI. He spent most of his childhood as a closet nerd, hiding his academic interests by spending most of his time on soccer, basketball, theater, break dancing, surfing, and hula dancing. Although he was enrolled in honors Math, Science, and English classes, only a handful of people knew that he was ranked 9th in the nation in the National Math League, and that he got a perfect 800 in his math SAT’s. Therefore, it came as a surprise to his peers when he announced that he would attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the top school in the nation for science and engineering.

Education

While at MIT, Kealoha pursued his passion for environmental energy technology by choosing Nuclear Engineering (Applied Nuclear Physics) as his major. He was primarily interested in researching the process of Fusion Energy, which is commonly referred to as the “Holy Grail” of energy production. During his University tenure, he worked as an intern at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Towards the end of his undergraduate career, however, Kealoha realized that the fundamental problem with Fusion Energy progress had more to do with political funding issues. To explore this path, he worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a federal think tank near Washington, DC affiliated with the Department of Defense. In 1998, he was the primary author of a white paper presented at the Pentagon regarding the national security consequences of Global Climate Change.

In 1999, Kealoha obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT with Tau Beta Pi and Alpha Nu Sigma honors. The title of his thesis was “Proliferation Issues Associated With the Transmutation and Stabilization of Plutonium.”

The Corporate World

Upon graduation, Kealoha decided to make a radical career switch by going into management consulting. He saw it as a great way to learn about the business world and as a chance to try something new. He was hired by the San Francisco branch of the Mitchell Madison Group, a worldwide company that was acquired three times while he was there. During his 2-years of wearing suits and traveling back and forth between major cities, Kealoha did marketing, aggressive sourcing, business development, internet strategy, corporate strategy, and energy research for clients such as Adidas, Visa, Samsung, Mattel, Sun Microsystems, and Health Net. He was promoted in July 2001 to Associate, the level of hire for employees with MBA degrees.

The hours were long in the consulting world, however, and the work was unsatisfying. Kealoha could not get over the feeling that his time was being wasted on helping rich companies to get richer. He longed for a new direction.

The Think

Inspired by the movie Fight Club, Kealoha started a weekly gathering known as The Think. The Think brought together a diverse group of intellectuals to explore various fields of study. Each week, a member of the club was designated as the leader/expert, and he/she brought a thought experiment, activity, or challenge that fully demonstrated a chosen field of study. The topics of The Think were wide-ranging, exploring fields from architecture to philosophy, from music to politics, from economics to moral dilemmas. For Kealoha, each session was like doing mental steroids.

Introduction to Slam Poetry

In the year 2000, while looking for something to do in San Francisco’s weekly newspaper The Guardian, Kealoha read about a slam poetry event near his apartment. He had never heard of slam poetry before, but decided to check it out since poetry was one of his interests in high school. The experience was life changing, and a whole new inspiration set in. After years of focusing on Nuclear Physics and Management Consulting, the creative hemisphere of Kealoha’s brain had been cooped up for far too long. That night, the floodgates were flung wide open, and Kealoha went home and wrote incessantly. He wrote for days, neglecting his consulting work. To him, slam poetry was the perfect combination of thinking, writing, and theater. He attended every poetry slam that he could in the Bay Area and soaked it all in.

Derailing

Organizing The Think and attending poetry slams gave Kealoha a sense of urgency to do something meaningful with his life and a desire to contribute to society. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do, he just knew that he didn’t want to keep working at a job without passion. At the end of 2001, he decided to leave the comfort of a well paying career in consulting for an unknown path. In short, he derailed off of the corporate track. He moved home to Hawai`i to reconnect with family and with nature. Using his savings and sleeping on his brother Mike’s couch, he surfed and hiked daily. He ate mangos. He wrote a lot.

Open Mics and Artistic Endeavors

Kealoha started sharing his work at open mics and showcases. He regularly performed at India Cafe open mics and Wordstew events. With time, he built a small following. In 2002, he hosted his own open mic at an `awa bar known as Hale Noa with Hawaiian Ryan. The weekly event was called the "Open Mind," and was a hybrid of an open mic and The Think, where the audience was frequently asked to discuss philosophical topics as a roundtable group, and artists were encouraged to interject with relevant songs and poems.

Along with a group of talented musicians and MC’s, Kealoha found himself as a front man for Communication, a hip-hop/funk/groove based band with co-founder Jonathan "Intrepid" Sypert. He also started doing poetry workshops in numerous schools, and played the lead role in Chase, a hip-hop theatre production directed by Cristian "See" Ellauri.

At this point, Kealoha was earning his living as a full-time poet.

HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays

In April 2003, Kealoha founded HawaiiSlam and started First Thursdays at Studio1, a monthly poetry slam that was based on what he experienced in San Francisco. The goal was to create a home base for Honolulu’s poets, visual artists, and DJ’s. The first slam attracted 300 people who were primarily Kealoha’s friends and family. Word spread and the next month attracted 500 people. At that point, HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays became the largest registered slam poetry competition in the world, edging out Germany’s attendance of 400 and San Francisco’s attendance at 300. Soon after, downtown Honolulu went through an artistic renaissance, hosting regular art, music, and poetry events that Kealoha frequently was either a part of or attending.

In November 2004, Studio1 shut down and Kealoha moved HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays to the Hawaiian Hut. The event continued to grow, reaching an average attendance of 600+. In December 2008, however, Hawaiian Hut closed down and Kealoha was forced to move the slam once again. During 2009, Kealoha hosted the slam at Cupola Theater, Next Door, and Pipeline Cafe.

Kealoha now throws HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays at the Fresh Cafe (831 Queen Street @ 8:30 on every first Thursday of the month). The event is still as big and as beautiful as it always has been.

HawaiiSlam Team

In 2004, HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays produced its first official slam team, which competed at the National Poetry Slam in Saint Louis, MO. The rookie team did extremely well, missing semi-finals by one-tenth of a point and finishing in the top third of all teams from around the nation. The next year, the team finished 7th out of 75 teams, and HawaiiSlam has had a distinct presence in the National Poetry Slam scene ever since. Out of the 7 times that it has participated in the National Poetry Slam, it has made it to the semi-finals 4 times, has showcased on the finals stage twice, has made it to the group piece finals, and finished as high as 5th in the entire tournament. In 2007, Kealoha qualified for the National Poetry Slam Individual Finals, ranking 8th out of 350 of the world's best poets.

HawaiiSlam still sends a team up to the National Poetry Slam, and Kealoha serves as the coach. The team will compete in Charlotte, NC in August 2012. The team is determined through the competition at HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays.

Youth Speaks Hawai`i

Kealoha started touring Hawai`i’s schools in 2002, performing in assemblies and conducting classroom workshops throughout the islands. After 3 years of spreading the art form of slam poetry, Kealoha realized the need for a place where teenagers could call home for exploring their voices. In January 2005, Kealoha applied for some grants and used the money that he received to found Youth Speaks Hawai`i, a local branch of the national Youth Speaks organization. He employed poets from HawaiiSlam’s First Thursdays to teach free weekly workshops to Hawai`i’s youth.

In 2009, HBO produced the Russel Simmons Presents "Brave New Voices" documentary, which followed 7 teams from around the nation as they traveled to the International Youth Poetry Slam. Kealoha was featured on the documentary as the strategic coach for Youth Speaks Hawai`i, which won the entire festival and was one of the seven teams that the documentary focused on.

Although Kealoha has passed the organizational leadership of Youth Speaks Hawai`i onto Lyz Soto (HawaiiSlam Team `07), he remains peripherally involved with the organization by helping out whenever needed. As a solo artist, he continues to visit schools, libraries, and community centers to expose both youths and adults to slam poetry. To this date, Kealoha has been hired by over 200 distinct institutions throughout the state of Hawai`i, and maintains a regular schedule of workshop and assembly visits.

Career highlights

• Performed at the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: National Philanthropic Briefing (2012).
• Represented Hawai`i at 7 National Poetry Slams (2003–2009) and performed on the finals stage four times (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008). Ranked 8th individually out of 350 poets in 2007, and was captain of the 5th ranked team in 2009. At the 2010 National Poetry Slam, was a performer for the opening ceremonies and was honored as a "National Slam Legend."
• Featured at major venues throughout the world including the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (New York City), the Bowery Poetry Club (New York City), the Green Mill (Chicago), New Jersey Performing Arts Center (Planet Hip-Hop Festival), the Schiffbau (Zurich, Switzerland), the Rokerij (Amsterdam, Netherlands), the Bienal do Ibirapuera (São Paulo, Brazil), and the NFL Pro Bowl halftime show.
• Featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices series presented by Russel Simmons (2009).
• Coached the Youth Speaks Hawai`i team that won the championship for the International Youth Poetry Slam in 2008.
• Poetic vocalist for Henry Kapono's Wild Hawaiian project, whose album was nominated for a Grammy.
• Featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Network Conference, the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, and the Honolulu Storytelling Festival.
• Wrote, performed in, and co-directed the State of Hawaii's "Can't Fool the Youth" anti-smoking campaign.
• Interview subject on PBS's Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox (2010)
• Actor in the film "Get a Job," winner of "Jury Award" at Las Vegas Film Festival, "Best Comedy" at Ventura Film Festival and Detroit Windsor International Film Festival, and nominee for "Best Film" at Marbella Internacional Film Festival (2010)
• Composed and performed two original pieces for the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards show (Hawaii's Grammys), once for the opening sequence and once with Henry Kapono and Mick Fleetwood (2010)
• Performed poetry at the World Invitational Hula Festival (2009)
• Featured 4 times on the "World's Greatest Poetry Slam" DVD series (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) and starred in the movie "Hawaii Slam: Poetry in Paradise."
• Has conducted workshops at over 200 schools, libraries, & prisons throughout his career.

External links

• Kealoha's Official Website
• Kealoha's MySpace Page
• HawaiiSlam Website