Out Spoken
Jaylene Clark Owens is a Philly resident from Harlem, NY. She is a highly acclaimed poet, as well as an AUDELCO and Barrymore Award winning actress. In the spoken word world, Jaylene began writing poetry in 5th grade. She began slamming in 2005 when she was on the 1st Place Urban Word New York Team at Brave New Voices. She is a first place Apollo Theater Amateur Night winner for her poetry. Jaylene is the former president and founder of Spit That!, a poetry organization on the Ithaca College campus that still thrives today. Jaylene’s poetry is powerful, engaging, and her performance combines elements of her background as a professional actress. In the acting world, she is a member of The Wilma Theater’s company, Hothouse. She is the Executive Director of Harlem KW Project, LLC, which is the theatrical company that created the spoken word infused play, Renaissance in the Belly of a Killer Whale. She wrote this play, along with three other women, about gentrification in Harlem. Jaylene has toured to over 20 schools across the country performing in this AUDELCO-award winning play. In addition to performing spoken word, she is also a teaching artist. She has taught several poetry writing workshops with students ranging from second grade to adults. Jaylene is currently working on her first book of poetry.