PATRICK WASHINGTON - Patrick has spent the last 20 years performing, conducting interactive workshops & spreading his love for the spoken, written & the rhythmic word across the country. Forged in DC's vibrant arts community of the mid-90's, Patrick found a home early on at the It's Your Mug coffeehouse in Georgetown, among such iconic groups as the 8 Rock Collective, The Modern Urban Griots, Collective Voices, and his own poetic family, Generation 2000. His early work has been published alongside Nikki Giovanni's in Rom Publications, 'Life through Black Eyes' and more recent work can be found online in the Beltway Quarterly.
Quite the shark when it comes to his art & activism, Patrick has worked for several respected organizations through the years such as The American Poetry Museum, America Scores, Youth build, and Words Beats & Life. He has constantly endeavored to merge his work with artists of other genres, resulting in numerous collaborations, but his most famous collaboration will always be his 18 year partnership as one-half of the Hip-hop/spoken word duo the POEM-CEES. Patrick was a regular performer on HBO's Def Poetry Jam and was featured by the NFL Network during the 2007 draft. In 2009, he was hired by Tavis Smiley to narrate his national museum exhibit, "America I Am", and, as part of the POEM-CEES, he was commissioned to create a poem dedicating the monument to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King on the national mall on October 16th 2011. He has recently launched his own arts education company, Dialect of Prince George's, and with it, the position of Youth Poet Laureate for Prince George's County, MD, which gives youth artists a direct line to government officials in recognizing youth related issues.
