Minton sparks biography

  • A wildly original spoken word artist, novelist, teacher and essayist, Minton Sparks was born in a Tennessee college town and raised among her Southern family.
  • Nashville-based poet Minton Sparks proved there is some room for literary, arty fusions of spoken word with traditional folk in the oft-conservative southern.
  • Sparks graduated from the University of the South with a B.A. in Psychology and earned an M.Ed.

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    Minton Sparks


    Love, Secrets, and Second Chances—February’s Must-Read Books Await!



    On her third CD, Sin Sick, wildly original spoken-word artist and master storyteller MINTON SPARKS lays out her poems like a desperate ransom. For listeners it is sweet release. The ache and weight of this collection takes us from sin to salvation and back again. Legendary songwriter John Prine says of Sin Sick: "It's humanity with humidity, all told humorously with humility - and just what the doctor ordered." Sparks' debut on Dualtone, Middlin' Sisters, was "one of the finest spoken word recordings issued in America in more than ten years" according to reviewer Thom Jurek. On that recording she had a chance to collaborate with the late, legendary, Waylon Jennings, and current singer/songwriter sensation Darryl Scott. Her second CD, This Dress, won Spoken Word Record of the Year in 2004 with the Just Plain Folk Music Awards, and got the nod from the Chicago Sun Times for Top Five Off

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    OUR SHARED LOVE OF WORDS.
    JOIN ME FOR OUR FEBRUARY WORKSHOP.

    In these workshops, I’ve witnessed deep community develop in ways that no longer surprise me but definitely inspire me. Learn more about our upcoming in-person and online writing workshops via the button below.

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    AMELIA WHITE

    Queen of the East Nashville Underground — No Depression

    She's a poet who's been compared to more famous songwriters for years; now, it would be more appropriate to use her as a benchmark. — Craig Havighurst, Music City Roots

    Top 25 Roots albums of '22 (Rocket Rearview) — Jim Hynes, Glide

    Over the last couple of decades, East Nashville fixture Amelia White has built a folk-pop catalog that's as unfussy as it is consistent in quality, and full of insinuating hooks, slyly sleepy singing and lean, jangly backing. — Jewly H

  • minton sparks biography

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    “Imagine, if you will, Flannery O'Connor and the ghost of Hank Williams having an romantisk händelse that results in the birth of an oäkta child . . . . inom have seen Minton Sparks. And if she’s not the ghost child of the woman who wrote Wise Blood and the man who sang ‘I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,’ then cotton doesn’t grow in a cotton field.” Rocker, Marshall Chapman

    Fusing music, poetry, and her intoxicating gift for berättande, wildly original spoken-word artist Minton Sparks continues to be in a category all her own. “Minton Sparks brings to the listener everything Southern from the sticky humid distress of pop-up thunder bumpers to the heartsick aftermath of love lost, gone wrong, starved, stuck, gossiped about to death, or otherwise misplaced.” Randy Moomaw

    Minton Sparks travels extensively, performing at various universities, clubs, and music, poetry, and storytelling festivals to share her unique brand of performance poetry and creative writing workshops with au