Performance poet Taylor Mali is coming back to town for a special event at the First Unitarian Society in Schenectady (1221 Wendell Avenue, Schenectady) on Thursday, November 8 at 8:00PM. Proceeds from this event will be going to Safe Passage, a non-profit organization working in Guatemala City to bring hope, education, and opportunity to the children and families living in extreme poverty around the City’s garbage dump.

New York City performance poet Taylor Mali, one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.” A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, Mali is the author of two collections of poetry and, most recently, a book of essays called “What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World.” In April of 2012, Mali completed a 12-year project of convincing 1,000 people to become teachers and marked the occasion by donating 12 inches of his hair to the American Cancer Society. Once the official voiceover on all Burger King commercials for radio and television, Taylor Mali has narrated several books on tape. He has also taught college, high school, and middle school; and once, in a single SCRABBLE game, earned a score of 581!

Mali is no stranger to the area. He recently was part of the WordXWord Festival in Pittsfield, performed at the Triplex in Great Barrington in July, read at Caffe Lena in 2010, and was a visiting writer / performer for the Frequency North series at the College of Saint Rose in 2009. He is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has created 1,000 new teachers through “poetry, persuasion, and perseverance.”

Tickets are $20 per adult, $15 per student. For more information, contact Mindy at alwiki@nycap.rr.com.