Who was both a long time AIDS activist and prominent of innovative ways to connect poetry and related art forms to a larger audience?
John Giorno John Giorno (born December 4, 1936) is an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, including "Dial-A-Poem". He became prominent as the subject of Andy Warhol's film "Sleep" (1963). He is also an AIDS activist and fundraiser, and a long-time practitioner of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
Shailja Patel Shailja Patel is an internationally acclaimed Kenyan poet, playwright, theatre artist, and political activist. She is most known for her spoken-word theatre show "Migritude". CNN characterizes Patel as an artist "who exemplifies globalization as a people-centered phenomenon of migration and exchange." She divides her time between Kenya and the USA. In Kenya, she is very active in terms of equality and peace. She is a founding member of Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice, a civil society coalition that works for an equitable democracy in Kenya. Her book, "Migritude", was published by Kaya Press in 2010. She describes herself in a December 2010 interview with San Francisco's Bay Sunday TV show, "As a political thinker, I place myself and my work in the lineage of centuries of progressive struggle that bequeathed us the invaluable awareness of ourselves as firstly human beings, in radical solidarity with all humans on the planet who share a vision of peace, justice, and equality."