ITHACA, N.Y. -- Four-time National Poetry Slam champion Taylor Mali will be the featured artist for the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Series Monday, April 12, at Cornell University. His performance is free and open to the public.

A noted poet, playwright and former sixth-grade teacher who has appeared in two seasons of HBO's "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry," Mali will bring his humorous, provocative, full-body poetry assault to the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Mali was classically trained in theater at Oxford University's Royal Shakespeare Academy, and he also has a master's degree in English literature. In addition to his national poetry slam titles, the New York City native won the jury prize for best one-man show at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo. He's written a number of books, including What Learning Leaves (Hanover Press, 2002), and has recorded two spoken-word CDs, Poems From the Like-Free Zone and The Difference Between Left and Wrong . And he was featured in two 1998 films: Slam , the Sundance Film Festival winner directed by Marc Levin, and Paul Devlin's documentary SlamNation .

The New York Times described Mali as "a ranting comic showman and literary provocateur." The Detroit Free Press wrote, "Mali has a smug arrogance similar to Dennis Miller's, but his loquacious logic reveals Miller for the intellectual flyweight he is."

The Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Series was created in memory of a 1990 Cornell graduate who died suddenly after suffering a seizure a few years ago while living and working in Paris. At Cornell, Pickard had been an active student employee and volunteer at Willard Straight Hall who loved the student union's weekly coffeehouse series. The emerging artist series was created through an endowment established by Pickard's estate, and it sponsors one program each academic semester at Cornell featuring bright young artists.

Mali is the fourth artist to perform in the annual series, which is sponsored by the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Fund and Cornell's Office of the Dean of Students.

For more information about Mali's performance or the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Series at Willard Straight Hall, contact Catherine Holmes at (607) 255-3513 or cah4@cornell.edu .