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Booking

click the image for a shareable Instagram carousel of the info on this page.

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

NEW: While a lot of my work is built for students (whether in higher ed or K-12), here is a list of offerings specifically for activist groups.

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.

FORMAT OPTIONS

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.

photo by Adam Bubolz

NOTABLE APPEARANCES

The previous page has all of my booking info; this addendum is just a list of events, universities, and colleges at which I’ve performed or presented. This is not a comprehensive list, just a few selected keynotes, performances, and programs I’ve done meant to give a kind of overview of the kind of work that I do. I’ve played at music festivals, keynoted national conferences, performed poems commissioned for fundraiser galas, and a bunch of weirder stuff too. But this is a good start:

A few colleges and universities I’ve performed or presented at:

Still adding more. Thanks for reading. Hope to be in touch!

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