On April 22, UW’s Campus Animal Rights Educators (CARE) present “Spoken Word with Jared Paul,” where you’ll have a chance to see a performance by self-professed hip-hop/punk/experimental/spoken word artist Jared Paul.

Event organizer Catherine Riedo calls the show “a crossover event for people who are interested in animal rights, the environment, politics or spoken word.”

The artist has toured with Jello Biafra, Saul Williams, Sage Francis and the Misfits, and has also placed first six times at poetry slams and competitions in his native Providence, R.I.

“The only thing stronger than [his] convictions is his ability to change yours with the craft of his language,” said Sonya Renee, the 2004 Individual National Poetry Slam Champion.

According to its Facebook group page, CARE is “a UW student-run organization devoted to animal rights,” whose goals include “promoting a vegetarian lifestyle through outreach and education and to reduce and eliminate animal exploitation and suffering wherever it may be found.”

The group does this by holding vegan potlucks, distributing “cruelty-free” literature, tabling each Tuesday outside the HUB and leading by example when members volunteer at area animal shelters. Information the group distributes includes the idea that vegetarianism is healthy, veganism helps make the Earth a greener place and anyone can become an activist.

For those unfamiliar with the genre, spokenwordart.com defines it as “a form of poetry in which a speaker recites a poem or story aloud,… perform[ing] with or without background music. In addition to music, spoken word artists often enhance their performance with choreography and other stage-play, such as audience participation.” While the spoken word movement had its big start in the early 1990s, according to the Web site, spoken word is likely to have existed since the time humans began expressing themselves verbally.

[Reach reporter Maddie Hall at arts@thedaily.washington.edu.]