January 15, 2026

LA MAMA POETRY ELECTRIC: ASIAN VOICES 2.0 – January 26

Curated by William Electric

Poetry Electric

La MaMa Program

The Poetry Electric fuses music, movement, sound, and dance with the spoken word and presents artists working in a wide range of styles including beatboxing, jazz and hip-hop theatre. This series has presented over 200 emerging poets from diverse cultural backgrounds.

William Electric Black, aka Ian Ellis James, is a seven-time Emmy Award winning writer for his work on “Sesame Street” between 1992 and 2002. He also wrote for Nickelodeon’s “Allegra’s Window” and Lancit Media’s “Backyard Safari.” In 2022-2023, his children’s television show – “Rap-U-Cation” was optioned by FarView Entertainment. He also developed an original TV show for FarView called Dragon Clouds. In a series of multimedia projects with Doug E. Fresh, Chuck D, and Artie Green, he has campaigned for exercise and good nutrition for young children, prescription drug awareness and obesity prevention. Faculty member, Dept. of Dramatic Writing, NYU Tisch. New tune on Spotify – Dancing In The Girls Room.

Severa Poulain is a fiction writer, playwright and illustrator living in New York City. She is pursuing a BFA in playwriting with a minor in creative writing and religious studies at New York University. Her fiction explores the hidden humour in transgression and sexual desire. Her characters confront norms in unusual and illicit ways; their mantra being: “Stop busting my balls.” Her chief influences are Georges Bataille, Woody Allen, and Henry Miller. You can find her on Substack @severapoulain.

Michelle Chen takes inspiration from the events that occur in and around her home, New York City, though her birthplace is Singapore and she hopes to return and visit someday. Her work appears in Prairie Schooner, Deep Wild, Kinsman Quarterly: Winds of Asia, The Evergreen Review, The Statesman, and elsewhere. Her writing has been recognized by Ploughshares Emerging Writers, the City College of New York, Brooklyn Public Library, and Penguin Random House, among others. She is an alumni of Girls in Icy Fjords, the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship, Girls Write Now, the Juniper Institute for Young Writers, and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio with the support of the National Society of Arts and Letters. At Stony Brook University she received the Best Masters Essay Prize, Distinguished Travel Award, and AAPI Mentorship Travel Grant, and is currently a Master’s student at NYU who enjoys presenting at research conferences, modeling, and performance, while getting less ice and less sugar in her winter melon milk tea. You can follow her collegiate book blog at https://silkwormreading.blogspot.com and on Instagram @michmashedpotatoes.

Kashvi Ramani is a sophomore at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Drama program. She is the inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of Virginia as well as the 2022 Youth Poet Laureate of Arlington. She is the author of both a children’s novel and a poetry chapbook and has been published in several anthologies and magazines such as Rattle, BeatBurg, Brown Girl Magazine, YoungArts, Collaborative Solutions for Communities, and Poetry Society of Virginia. Kashvi draws inspiration from topics that affect her and those in her life, providing her the opportunity to express a unique perspective on the world through her diverse experiences as a queer and Indian-American poet.

Eka Savajol is a transmasc playwright, lighting designer, and multidisciplinary artist interested in spirals. Eka’s writing, lighting, and performance work has appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe, East to Edinburgh at 59E59, the Tank, the Chain, Colorado College, Downtown Arts; in feature and short films, print and online journals, play festivals, experimental musical albums, and more. Eka is a technical collaborator with the New York Neo-Futurists. Eka is a member of the Public Theater’s 2025-2027 Emerging Writers Group, the 2025 winner of the Goldberg Playwriting Prize, a 2025-2026 Leap of Faith artist at the Lucille Lortel Theater, and a 2025 FABnyc LES Young Artists of Color fellow. Eka is also one of the founding members of the art and publishing collective Active Chapter, which has hosted events and workshops with Hive Mind Books, Rash NYC, and the University Settlement Society.

Vinay Umapathy is a filmmaker with a BFA from NYU Tisch’s Dramatic Writing program. He has worked in production offices and across various entertainment media environments, including the Tribeca Festival, Scott Rudin Productions, SiriusXM, AXS Lab, and First Access Entertainment.

His most recent film, Behind The Line, premiered at the 2024 Chelsea Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short. It was also nominated for Best American Short at the 2024 Septimius Awards and will have its West Coast Premiere at the 2025 Tasveer Film Festival.

The Settler, an upcoming horror feature that Vinay wrote and is directing, is partially financed and in development with support from SUCH Content, and CAA,. In addition to his own films, Vinay has produced the feature films Deshlai by Qaushiq Mukherjee, Blue Sunshine by Samyuktha Vijayan, and Small Talk by dontwatchtheclock.

Alyssa See-Tho is a multiracial, queer, Catholic writer who has worked on a variety of forms and cares deeply about creating social change through storytelling. Alyssa’s work has been developed and performed by theaters in both New York City (Rattlestick Theater, The Tank, Workshop Theater, Et Alia Theater Company, Caveat, and The Green Room 42) and the San Francisco Bay Area (Gunn High School), produced online (What Next web series, COCAWrites: Plays on Zoom Festival), and on the radio (WNYU). She is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and the UNTITLED Musical Writers Group. She graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University with a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing and Performance Studies. Beyond writing, Alyssa has also produced and directed plays, short films, multimedia works, musicals, and web series.

Leynah Nguyen (she/her) is a Vietnamese writer and actress from San Jose, California. She is a senior earning her BFA in Drama from NYU where she completed her primary training at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute and is now studying at the Experimental Theater Wing. Leynah is passionate about collaborating with other student artists to amplify underrepresented voices. She also holds positions on the executive boards of NYU’s All Asian Arts Alliance and the Feminist Theatre Company. Selected past credits: Ma in The Rhino (NYU Tisch StudentWorks), Helen & u/s Beatty in Fahrenheit 451 (NYU Strasberg Theater Production). @le9nah

Poetry Electric 2025–2026 is made possible by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the Howard Gilman Foundation, The John Golden Fund, and The Shubert Foundation. Additional funding from the Axe-Houghton Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

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LA MAMA POETRY ELECTRIC: ASIAN VOICES 2.0 – January 26

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