Gary Mex Glazner

Who is Gary Mex Glazner?

Gary Mex Glazner, is a poet and author. He was the Managing Director of the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, 2007 to 2010.

In 1990, Glazner working as a florist in San Francisco. As poet and organizer in that city's ever-evolving spoken word community, he was instrumental in organizing the first ever National Poetry Slam, which featured poets from San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. In the book, Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz wrote:

To promote the first National Poetry Slam, Glazner used such "unpredictable" ideas as hiring a circus barker outside of the venues in which the slams were happening "like at the freak show at Coney Island", selling hot dogs from a vendor during the slam, and the use of a "PoJ Kit," which Glazner described as a mobile DJ unit wherein poets can perform and broadcast their poems onto the street while being driven around in a Glazner's car.

Glazner's relationship continued with the Poetry Slam movement. In 1993, he helped organize the fourth National Poetry Slam held in San Francisco again.