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Peter "PK" Kahn
An Educator, Poet and Project Creator
I aim to utilize my thirty years of experience working with young people in Chicago and London to help educators cultivate and develop student voices to transform schools and lives.
Spotlight:
2024 Recipient of the American Writers
Museum’s “Inspiring Teacher” Award
Learn More: American Writers | YouTube
On a Mission
"Because we are going through so much as a society, as a world — writing about what you are going through is a really healthy way of doing that," English teacher and poet Peter Kahn gives his Brief But Spectacular take on how spoken word poetry amplifies students' voices.
Iman Shumpert’s Fork in the Road
The 2016 NBA Champion and 2021 Dancing With the Stars Champion Iman Shumpert reflects on having to tell Mr. Kahn that he was pursuing the “drug” of basketball over poetry slam team. Imagine that! :)
"A Pied Piper of a teacher"
Chicago Sun-Times
CBS Chicago: After 20 Years An Oak Park-River Forest Poetry Teacher Retires, But Not Without A Grand Finale
About Peter
A former Chicago social worker, Peter Kahn was an English teacher from 1994 and a Spoken Word Educator from 2003 until 2022 at Oak Park/River Forest High School. A founding member of the London poetry collective Malika’s Kitchen, he co-founded the London Teenage Poetry Slam and, as a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths-University of London, created the Spoken Word Education Training Programme. Peter currently leads poetry programming–Schooled on Poetry– in Central Ohio schools in partnership with The Ohio State University, Thurber House and CAPA.
Workshops:
For young people in over sixty schools (age 10-22) in Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wisconsin, NY, the United Kingdom and Trinidad.
For adults for the Poetry Foundation’s Teacher Institute (Chicago and Miami) and for the National Council for Teachers of English in the United States, and for The English and Media Centre, Apples & Snakes, Spread the Word, Writerz & Scribez and Poetry School in the UK.
Lectures/Talks/Readings:
A “featured speaker” at the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, as well as a full-day workshop leader and panelist; presented at the National Association of Teachers of English (UK) twice; the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference, Hip-Hop Education Think Tank, national Social and Emotional Learning Annual Conference, and the Furious Flower Conference. Keynote Speaker–St. Francis Writers’ Conference (2019) (previous keynotes include Gwendolyn Brooks, Tobias Wolff, Mark Strand and Billy Collins); Poetry Foundation; the British Library; Chicago Humanities Festival; and, Northwestern University, DePaul University, Columbia College, Carleton College, the University of North Carolina—Charlotte, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Denison University (Jonathan Reynolds Young Writers Workshop), the University of Wisconsin-Madison and for the University of South Carolina and Allen University.
Recognition:
Education work and/or poetry featured in the London Times, London Independent, London Telegraph, The London Guardian, Ethnography and Education, Chicago Tribune, Education Week, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, BBC Radio, PBS NewsHour, Booklist, WGN radio, Bustle, LitHub, Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Poetry Review (UK), Teaching English (UK), English Journal, and The New York Times Book Review (reviewed by Claudia Rankine). Awarded “Coach of the Year” for 2009 Louder Than a Bomb (the Chicago Teen Slam). Two-Time prize winner in the Poetry Society’s (U.K.) National Competition—2017 (top 10 out of over 13,000 entries) and 2009 (top 13 out of over 10,000 entries). Selected as one of NewCity’s Literary Top 50 for 2020. Others on the list include Ed Roberson, Rosellen Brown, Natalie Moore, Krista Franklin, Erika L. Sánchez and Natasha Trethewey. Wallace Douglas Award for contribution to the Chicago youth writing community. Featured in Dr. Sue Dymoke’s “Poetry is Not a Special Club” (Oxford Review of Education), in Dr. Sue Weinstein’s The Room Is on Fire: The History, Pedagogy, and Practice of Youth Spoken Word Poetry, Narcisa Nozica’s Slam Your Poetry: Write a Revolution (Australia), Spoken Word in the UK (Routledge), and inspiration for young adult novel, Spoken, written by Melanie Weiss. Runner-Up/Prizewinner-- 2019 NCTE and Penguin Random House Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry.
Appearances
This vivid new collection of poetry and prose — curated by award-winning and bestselling poets Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, Peter Kahn, and Dan “Sully” Sullivan — illuminates just that, uplifting the incredible legacy this community has cultivated. Among the dozens of current students and alumni, Respect the Mic features work by NBA star Iman Shumpert, National Youth Poet Laureates Kara Jackson and Natalie Richardson, comedian Langston Kerman, and more.
In its pages, you hear the sprawling echoes of students, siblings, lovers, new parents, athletes, entertainers, scientists, and more –all sharing a deep appreciation for the power of storytelling. A celebration of the past, a balm for the present, and a blueprint for the future, Respect the Mic offers a tender, intimate portrait of American life, and conveys how in a world increasingly defined by separation, poetry has the capacity to bind us together.
