Caroline Harvey believes in poetry and performance as a powerful path for overcoming adversity, discovering vibrant health, and affecting real social change.
Passionate about telling stories of creative survival, Caroline has been touring internationally as spoken word poet, educator, and activist for over 15 years. Currently, Caroline teaches for Berklee Online and is co-owner of Dogtown Books, an independent bookstore in Gloucester, MA.
In November 2014 Caroline was a Keynote Speaker and Performing Artist at The World Parks Congress in Sydney, a global forum on land conservation and protection with representatives, citizens, and diplomats from 160 countries in attendance. In association with this Congress, Caroline’s Body of Bark was published in Conservation Catalysts: The Academy as Nature’s Agent, edited by James N. Levitt.
In 2013 Caroline was awarded The Steelgrass Residency and facilitated writing & voice workshops for the remaining descendants of Ni i’hau (“The Forbidden Island” of Hawaii) on Kauai at Ke Kula Ni i-hau. Caroline was nominated for the 2013 Best Poets Award and a 2012 Pushcart Prize. And in 2011 Caroline was commissioned by the US Embassy in Serbia to perform original work & lead workshops about free speech for the first generation of youth to grow up post-Milosevic.
Caroline draws as much from Henry Rollins as they do from Shakespeare; they are as equally identified with punk rock & a history of recovery and rebellion as they are with Buddhism, Yoga & contemporary neurobiology. The work Caroline makes reflects this unique merging of the sacred & the scholarly with the irreverent & profane.
Find Caroline’s poetry and narrative nonfiction published in national and academic literary journals, including Gertrude Press, Radius, The Legendary, the Cantab Poetry Anthology, the National Poetry Slam Anthology “High Desert Voices,” and The Lowestoft Chronicle. Featured on Season Five of HBO’s Def Poetry. There is a chapter devoted to Caroline’s life and work in Camille Colatosti’s book, “To Be An Artist: Musicians, Visual Artists, Writers, and Dancers Speak.”
Caroline has shared stages and classrooms with Alicia Keys, Livingston Taylor, Melissa Ferrick, Donna De Lory, Mary Lambert, Danez Smith, and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), and has writing published alongside Gillian Welch, Mike Reid, and Pat Pattison, among others.
As an educator, Caroline’s original curriculum inspire authentic artistry and are informed by diverse approaches to wellness and awareness; her education and training in multiple artistic disciplines, physical and psychological health sciences, and various mind/body and yoga techniques combine to form unique classroom experiences for students of all levels. In addition to their 10+ years at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has held teaching residencies and provided educational programming in a variety of spaces, including The Esalen Institute, Urban Word NYC, National Poetry Slam, Inc., The College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, Emerson College, Youth Speaks, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.
pronouns: they/them
caroline harvey 