Grammy Nominations for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album

The Grammy category Best Spoken Word Album dates back to 1959. “Still, the wider Spoken Word GRAMMY Field — which houses the Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording category, formerly known as the Best Spoken Word Album — continues to evolve,” explains the Grammy Awards website. And, for 2023, an important addition has been made to the category: Best Spoken Word Poetry Album.

“It was an exciting opportunity because we were also hearing a lot from the spoken word community," Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said about the addition of the new Best Spoken Word Poetry Album GRAMMY category. "All of our changes and reactions to what's happening are always going to be fluid; we're always going to evolve our categories. We're going to continue to make sure we're representing music in the way that it's being created."

The award is for albums containing greater than 50% playing time of new spoken word poetry recordings.

These are the nominees for the award’s inaugural year:

Black Men Are Precious
by E. Ethelbert Miller

Miller is a self-described literary activist. His collections of poetry include Andromeda (1974), The Land of Smiles and the Land of No Smiles (1974), Season of Hunger / Cry of Rain (1982), Where Are the Love Poems for Dictators? (1986), Whispers, Secrets and Promises (1998), and How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love (2004). He received a Columbia Merit Award in 1993 and was honored by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in 2003.

Read his full bio here.

Call Us What We Carry: Poems
by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember Gorman from her reading at President Biden’s inauguration, a beacon in her yellow jacket and red hat. She is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. Gorman is also an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University. In 2017, Amanda Gorman was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word – a program that supports Youth Poets Laureate in more than 60 cities, regions and states nationally.

Check out her website here.

Hiding In Plain View
by Malcolm-Jamal Warner

If you came of age in the 80s, you’ll remember Warner as Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.” Along with his acting and directing career, Warner is also an author, bass player, and poet. His independently distributed albums “The Miles Long Mix Tape,” “Love and Other Social Issues,” and “Selfless” became popular on the underground music scene and can now be found on all major streaming platforms.

Visit his website here.

The Poet Who Sat By The Door
by J. Ivy

“A community servant, a voice for the culture, and a prolific spoken word artist, Ivy has encapsulated all that he has learned into the progression of his craft while always aiming to assist the next generation of creatives,” wrote Ebony in a recent interview with the poet. Once the Grammy category was announced for Best Spoken Word Poetry album — instead of lumping poets in with audiobooks, storytelling and narration — “it motivated me to want to get an album done so I could throw my name in the hat,” Ivy says.

Read the Ebony feature here.

You Will Be Someone's Ancestor. Act Accordingly.
by Amir Sulaiman

“Amir Sulaiman is a prolific poet, recording artist, actor, screenwriter and producer born in Rochester, New York,” says the poet’s bio. “His poems cross subjects of love, tragedy and what it means to reconcile humanity with the unprecedented trials of modernity.” Amir was introduced to a national audience in 2005 when he was featured on Russell Simmons’ “Def Poetry Jam.”

Learn more here.

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