Extended Bio:

Hosting, Creating

Currently residing in Los Angeles, Alyesha Wise-Hernandez is the co-founder of S.L.A.M. (Spoken Literature Art Movement) - an organization providing poetry education and extensive programming for poets, The Director of Program Development for Street Poets - a non-profit mostly serving juvenile injustice-involved youth, and a co-host at Da Poetry Lounge - the nations's longest running weekly open mic. Alyesha also serves as a member of the Theater Committee at Art Share LA. Established while in Philadelphia, she is the co-founder of The Pigeon Presents: The Philadelphia Poetry Slam, voted "Best of Philly" for literary activity in 2012 by Philadelphia Magazine and awarded the Philadelphia Knight Arts Challenge Grant in 2013. She is the founder of "Love, Us" - an annual production, turned movement, that was created to promote universal & self love through the arts. Founded in 2010, the organization featured over 50 performance artists, including G Yamazawa, Tank and the Bangas, Mahogany Browne and more. Ms. Wise ran the organization for five years, in Philadelphia, until she moved to Los Angeles in late 2013.

Some of her past hosting duties included co-host of The Philadelphia Pigeon, co-host of Jus Words, Philadelphia's longest running open mic and co-presenter of Philadelphia's late-night poetry and soul series, Speak Easy. She has also hosted various special events across the country.

 

Performance and Poetry Highlights

Most recently, Alyesha was highlighted in the Los Angeles Times and featured on BET in a tribute to George Floyd. A recent presenter at AWP 2022, Alyesha has also appeared in the ACLU 2020 Virtual Gala hosted by Billy Porter, in which she delivered a tribute to the late Justice Ginsburg. In early 2020, she was featured on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) as a poetry instructor on the reality tv series Love Goals. In 2019, she collaborated with the Nantucket Project twice, delivering a workshop and performance at their main gathering in Nantucket and another of their events in Irvington, NY. Alyesha has previously collaborated with the ACLU of Southern California, writing and performing for a number of their events since 2018. Early that same year, she was filmed for the new series The Assembly with Rosario Dawson. Some additional collaborations include performing recorded work for Codeblack Films and featuring and writing for Brave New Films. In 2015, Alyesha was a speaker for TEDxPasadenaWomen. Also, in 2015, she was filmed by PBS/WHYY in Philadelphia, and later featured on the television show, Articulate, an arts magazine show exploring art and creativity in our everyday lives. In 2014, Alyesha was selected to be part of a small group of artists featured in the Google Interstellar Project, specifically a "Time Capsule" documentary presented by Google Play and Christopher Nolan, in conjunction with the hit movie, Interstellar. In 2012, Alyesha was interviewed by Director and Film Producer, Ron Howard. That same year, she was awarded the "Queens Inspire Kings Award" by Kings Rule Together in Philadelphia for her inspiration towards the youth and others via her poetry and community development. She has been featured on popular online magazines & platforms such as Huffington Post, For Harriet, Blavity, Afropunk, Button Poetry, Buzzfeed, Bustle & more.

From 2017-18, Alyesha served as head coach of the Hollywood (Da Poetry Lounge) Slam Team, along with co-coach, Matthew Cuban. Together, they coached both teams to final stage at The National Poetry Slam. She was the 2014 Hollywood grand slam champion and a member of the 2014-2017 Hollywood slam teams. In 2017, she took over as coach. She is a 2-time Women of the World poetry slam finalist, a 2-time Philadelphia grand slam champion and a Southern Fried poetry slam team champion. Ms. Wise, along with Matthew Cuban, co-coached the Get Lit (Los Angeles) youth slam team that competed at the 2014-2017 Brave New Voices international youth poetry slams. In 2014, the team made it to finals stage, where they were ranked third in the world. From 2015-2017 the teams advanced to semi-finals.

 

Teaching Artist

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Alyesha spends most of her time as a teaching artist and mentor. She visits classrooms, detention centers & other facilities mentoring, performing & teaching poetry. To book Alyesha for a workshop, click here.