If you already know you’d like to start the booking process, please fill out this form. If you’d like more info, read on.

Kyle Tran Myhre (aka Guante) is a poet and activist whose work explores the relationships between narrative, power, and resistance. He’s performed at the United Nations, been featured on a Grammy-winning album, been a member of two National Poetry Slam championship teams, and visited countless colleges, conferences, and festivals, using spoken word and storytelling as doorways into critical dialogue and community-building. An educator as well as a performing artist, Tran Myhre completed his Masters studies at the University of Minnesota with a focus on spoken word, critical pedagogy, and social justice education

EXAMPLES OF RECENT PROGRAMS

• Of What Future Are These the Wild, Early Days? An Introduction to Spoken Word & Slam Poetry
• How Do We Build a Culture of Consent? Counter-Narrative Masculinities in Action
• Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough: Spoken Word, Science Fiction, and Social Justice
• If Pawns Could Move Backwards: On Poetry, Protest, and Possibility
• Beyond Buzzwords: facilitated discussions on topics like allyship, white supremacy, healthy masculinity, systems change, etc.
• Writing to Cancel the Apocalypse: six-week virtual class on writing that engages with movement work via Button Poetry
• Spark & Bellow: four-week virtual creative writing class for organizers via The Forge

WHAT I DO

I am a spoken word poet. And while I’m always happy to simply show up somewhere and perform, the bulk of the actual work that I do is more about using poems as entry points into dialogue. My background is in education and facilitation as much as it is poetry, so the poems are just starting points, excuses to more deeply explore issues related to agency, narrative, and power.

I don’t think of what I do as a replacement for other kinds of trainings or workshops—it’s more a supplement. Because if we’re talking about issues like consent, healthy masculinity, disrupting white supremacy, bystander intervention, allyship, privilege & power, etc., there’s no one-time, check-the-box program (arts-based or otherwise) that’s going to be enough. So I think a diversity of tactics, approaches, and experiences is valuable, and an arts-based program can be a powerful way to take concepts that are too-often presented as abstract or intellectualized and “zoom in” on them in order to make them more concrete.

Even though all that is the bulk of my work these days, I’m also very open to more straightforward stuff: for example, a drop-in virtual class visit during a high school ELA poetry unit, or hosting a writing workshop and student open mic during orientation week at a college. Lots of room for creativity.

WORK SAMPLES

• My TEDx Talk on arts approaches to activism and advocacy.
• Poem examples for different potential audiences/programs:
  • Ten Responses to the Phrase “Man Up” (masculinity programs)
  • Poem for the First Day of the Poetry Unit in Language Arts Class (ELA classes)
  • White Supremacy is Not a Shark; It Is the Water (antiracism trainings)
  • To Throw a Wrench in the Blood Machine (GOTV campaigns)
  • Consent at 10,000 Feet (consent workshops)

FORMAT OPTIONS

• Performance + Q&A: super straightforward, and can be combined with other points on this list.
• Themed performance or “poetic keynote” mixing performance and presentation, built around a particular topic (healthy masculinity, consent, counter-narrative, leadership, a range of equity issues, etc.)
• Workshops, trainings, and facilitated discussions: whether arts-based, social justice-based, or both. I do this for classes and in arts spaces, of course, but also for things like high school speech teams, gender and sexuality alliances, nonprofits, and beyond.
• SECRET RIVERS: A live poetry performance over music, in collaboration with producer/composer SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE playing live MPC and Loop Station 505.
• Class visits and residencies: whether a one-time visit or a longer engagement. I’ve been booked to guest-teach multiple classes over the course of a week to lead up to a student-led performance.
• Virtual programs: From one-time class visits, to week-long residencies, to commissioned videos, and beyond.
• Other options: from hosting student open mics and poetry slams, to presenting at first-year orientation programs, to serving as the “opening act” for more traditional keynote speakers, I’m always open to ideas.

THE BOOKING PROCESS

I pride myself on being easy to work with. Reach out! You can use this link to share some basic details on what you’re thinking, and we can work together from there to confirm the rest. In terms of budget, I always try to work with organizers to figure out what makes sense for everyone involved. Please don’t hesitate to pitch something; even when it doesn’t work out, I try to connect people to other artists and educators who do similar work.

After we confirm the basic details, I’m always happy to provide materials that can help promote the event– images, a bio, titles and blurbs, and even some tools and tactics that have been successful at other gigs.

Have an idea, or want to discuss options? Please fill out this form. Thank you!

The following page is just a big list of universities and colleges at which I’ve performed or presented, shared for context.