About Poetry-N-Motion, LLC
About Poetry-N-Motion, LLC
Poetry-N-Motion, LLC is a company that not only specializes in spoken word and poetry, but so much more. Through the gift of spoken word and writing, we engage our community through empowerment and personal development. Our specialties deal with writing workshops, mentoring, and also event hosting/planning. Our mission is to serve as a change agent to provide an alternative for individuals who are faced with challenging situations where a different outlet can be utilized to decrease and/or diffuse the emotional distress. Our target audiences are youth, veterans, community leaders, and aspiring artists.
About The Founder/CEO:
About The Founder/CEO:
LeJuane (El’Ja) Bowens is an award-winning spoken word poet, host, speaker, workshop facilitator, and author. Born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Lima, Ohio, El’Ja enlisted in the United States Army in 2000. During his six years of service, which included two deployments to Iraq, he began expressing his thoughts through writing. In 2005, encouraged by a friend, he posted several poems online. The positive feedback opened his eyes to his true calling: poetry.
Since then, El’Ja has achieved numerous accolades, including becoming the 2009 McDonald's Food For Thought Poetry Slam Champion, the 2010 ECU Survival of the Illest Poetry Slam Champion, and the first poet to have his work featured at the Obama Art Museum in Raleigh, NC—the first and only museum of its kind in North Carolina.
In 2014, El’Ja was recognized as the first North Carolina poet to compete in three different Grand Slam Finals across three cities, winning all three slams (Fayetteville, Charlotte, and Durham). That same year, alongside the Bull City Slam Team, he won the 22nd Southern Fried Poetry Slam and placed second the following year. In 2015, El’Ja was nominated for Spoken Word Artist of the Year at the 5th Annual National Poetry Awards.
As one of the co-founders and the director of the Southeastern Regional NC Poetry Festival, held annually in Fayetteville, NC, El’Ja has also been featured on Poetry Slam Inc, All Def Poetry, Amazon, and PBS.
El’Ja is the author of several poetry collections, including So Many Things to Say: A Collection of Poems, Anywhere...But Here, and Before: A Collection of Poems. He received the Rising Star Male Poet Award for the State of North Carolina and the overall GANSPA Award in 2016. He also hosts the Nerd Slam, an event he has presented at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam, National Poetry Slam, and numerous ComicCon events across the United States.
El’Ja has performed at various prestigious festivals, including the Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival, Big Ears Festival, the Book'em NC Book Festival, the Homegrown Festival, and the National Folk Festival. He has shared the stage with notable poets such as Georgia Me, Sunni Patterson, Abyss, and Shihan Van Clief, as well as music legends like C&C Music Factory, Rob Base, All-4-One, and Coolio. Additionally, El'Ja has collaborated with organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.