RIK Vazquez is a spoken word artist and educator. At the age of eighteen he coached the Steinmetz Poetry team which competed in Chicago’s “Louder Than A Bomb” youth poetry slam, the team won and went on to compete on a national level. The teams RIK has coached in successive years have met all personal and educational goals they have set, several going on to college as Creative Writing and English majors. In 2009, 2011, and 2012 he represented Chicago at the adult National Poetry Slam. In 2010 RIK became a member of Marc Smith’s Speak Easy poetry ensemble. Over the summer of 2011 he teamed up with Patricia Smith and Billy Tuggle and relaunched the traveling poetry collective known as the Four Star Poets. The only things he does better than writing poems is hunting lions and riding dolphins.
