Buddy Wakefield was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, then raised in Sanborn, New York and Baytown, Texas. He was adopted by a stepfather in 1980 and became Buddy Marshall Stevens. After eighteen years of no contact, Buddy chose his own legal last name, Wakefield, which was pulled from the Weezer song, My Name is Jonas, thinking that the second half of the song began "My name is Wakefield. I've got a box full of your toys." He later discovered that Weezer's Rivers Cuomo was not saying Wakefield. He was saying Wepeel, the name of Cuomo's sled from childhood. In 2001, Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, Washington, sold or gave away everything he owned, and moved into a Honda Civic to tour North American poetry venues. In 2004, and again in 2005, he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship title, and was a member of several slam teams, including Team Long Beach in 2002, and Team Seattle in 2006 and 2007. Having not competed in poetry slam since 2008, he has gone on to build a significant following, and still considers performance poetry to be his day job while living in Los Angeles, pursuing acting and screenwriting for both television and film. In addition to touring the world solo for two decades, Wakefield has also toured, performed with, headlined and opened for hiphop, folk, and rock acts worldwide. As well, he was a core member of 2007's Solomon Sparrow's Electric Whale Revival, 2008's Junkyard Ghost Revival, 2009's Elephant Engine High Dive Revival, and 2010's Night Kite Revival, where he shared the stage with notable poets such as Derrick Brown, Anis Mojgani, Andrea Gibson and Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, among others. These events were performed to large, enthusiastic audiences throughout North America. As of 2019, Wakefield has performed in every state in the U.S. except North Dakota. On purpose. In 2020, Wakefield founded Awful Good Writers and produced Heavy Hitters Festival, a summer-long series of online performances and workshops with a lineup boasting 30+ of the most beloved spoken word artists on the planet, including Saul Williams, Mary Lambert, Sarah Kay, Beau Sia, Rudy Francisco, Sonya Renee Taylor, and others.
Poetry, Performance, Books and Records
Wakefield was the inaugural author released on founded by Derrick C. Brown. He has published five subsequent books with Write Bloody Publishing: Some They Can't Contain, Live for a Living, Gentleman Practice, Stunt Water: The Buddy Wakefield Reader 1991-2011, and A Choir of Honest Killers. Wakefield also wrote and published a comical reference book with his then boyfriend, Stephen Snook, for backyard chicken keeping in urban and suburban environments: Wakefield has released three full-length spoken word albums with best friend and producer Jon Berardi: A Stretch of Presence , Run On Anything which was released by Strange Famous Records, and Live at the Typer Cannon Grand which was released by Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe Records. DiFranco first became aware of Wakefield when her mother saw him perform at an art gallery in Buffalo, New York, and gave DiFranco a print out of Wakefield's website, saying, "You have to do something with this guy." The album contains recordings of live performances, including several from Wakefield's numerous tours opening for DiFranco, as well as one studio-produced track.
Influence
Though he has not competed in Poetry Slam, a competition he refers to as a gimmick, since 2008, Wakefield has had a profound impact on the contemporary Poetry Slam movement, both in his performance and writing style, as well as how he has conducted his career. In her book, Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, New York Times bestselling author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz named Wakefield as "the modern poetry slam role model." She wrote,
Discography
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Run On Anything
A Stretch of Presence no ISBN
Anthologies
Elephant Engine High Dive Revival, Write Bloody Publishing, 2008
