The Recording Academy is debuting its spoken word poetry album category at the Grammy awards show on Feb. 5., 2023.
Poets across the country are stirred up about it because they've spent years organizing and petitioning the Academy to create the category.
The lead organizer, poet J. Ivy, is on a mission for people to "put some respect" on poetry as a mainstream art form, he told TODAY in November.
He notched a win under his belt over the summer when the Grammy Awards announced five new categories, including best spoken word poetry album. He was nominated in the category on Nov. 15 for his new album "The Poet Who Sat By The Door."
"It's just been incredible to see the growth personally — to just watch the art form get more love and more popularity, because it wasn't like that when I started," he said. "It wasn't the cool thing to say you were a poet. I still meet people like, 'It's great to meet you. What do you do?' I'm a poet. 'Yes, great. So what you do?'"
He's been a poet for 30 years. He served as president of the Chicago Recording Academy chapter for two years and is currently a national trustee, the first poet to hold the position. He's been nominated for three Grammy awards. He wrote lyrics and performed on "The College Dropout," the debut studio album of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. He also wrote the opening narration of Netflix documentary "jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Triology."
Ivy said his career, and poetry being indoctrinated into the artistic canon, minimizes tropes of the struggling artist. His goal is that "for generations to come, when they get that infamous question of what you want to be when you grow up, maybe the answer would be a poet. That's a dream."
'Split the category'
Ivy said the new best spoken word poetry album category did not just appear serendipitously. He said he has been pushing the Grammy awards to create it for six years, but it just now happened. And being nominated in it is just a bonus, he said.
"It really was a hope and a wish to to be able to create a platform strictly for the poets. I was nominated last year in the spoken word category. And historically, the category included poetry, audio books, storytelling, narration."
Meaning, he was vying against former President Barack Obama's audiobook "A Promised Land" and comedian Dave Chappelle's "8:46" standup routine, among other acclaimed works that were not poems.
"It was incredible to be nominated alongside of them. But it was like comparing apples and oranges because I have a poetry album and I was up against these audiobooks. So I went to the Academy, I started working on it six years ago. And my goal was to get them to split the category. And this year, it miraculously happened."
During the six years, Ivy said he rallied poets across the country to educate them on the Grammy Awards process.
"Getting information to the poets (was) a big part of the change not happening sooner because poets weren't submitting projects. Well, at least not enough for the Academy to consider it a healthy category. They will get hundreds of audiobook submissions, but the poets either didn't know they could submit, didn't know how to submit, they didn't think it was possible. We were seeing celebrity and political stars being nominated and winning in this category."
Ivy said while teaching other poets how to submit their work for Grammy consideration, he personally submitted between 30 and 50 projects from other people each of the six years as documentation to the Academy that poetry has enough interest to be its own stand-alone category.
'The Poet Who Sat By The Door'
Ivy's album "The Poet Who Sat By The Door" was released at the end of September and it's a love letter for how to come together during politically and racially divided times, he said, and that starts with introspection.
"Creative expression is all self awareness. It's you taking a deep look inside and every poem is like a mirror. And you get an opportunity look at yourself, study your thoughts. You see how your mind works, how your spirit moves. You see what you're drawn to, what you magnetized to. And for me, every poem has further develop the knowing of who I was as a person and as a man."
His first poem was a class assignment when he was a kid.
"My first time onstage, as scared as I was, I got a standing ovation," he said. "From the assignment, it went from, OK, here, perform this piece and that later developed into me performing my own poetry. And it's just amazing to go from that first moment of being seen — because I felt unseen. I felt invisible. I felt unheard and in that moment of getting that ovation, it was like, 'Oh, wow. People see me, they hear me. And it was like, man, when is the next show.'"
Ivy said he hopes his new album helps people see the humanity in others and how togetherness drives change.
"One of the lines in 'Beauty in the Journey' said, 'I've never met a stranger,'" he said.
"I feel that way. I see people, I feel their spirit. And with this album, I want people to feel the spirit of it. I want them to feel the warm hug. I want them to feel the joy. Even in the poems that express struggle, I want them to look at that and say, 'Man, let's all make that change together because it doesn't have to be this way.'"
Ivy said it's absolutely possible within his lifetime.
"As a poet, I've been able to manifest and create life how I want it to be. So if I can do that as a poet, I know we can do that as a people. We can really shift the world."
