Buddy Wakefield, born Kenneth Zane Beasley III in 1974 in Shreveport, Louisiana, grew up in Baytown, Texas. After a stepfather adopted him in 1979 he became Buddy Marshall Stevens, and in 2003 he took the name Buddy Wakefield. After working as an executive assistant at a biomedical firm, he quit in 2001, sold his possessions, lived in a Honda Civic while touring North American poetry venues, and entered the Poetry Slam circuit, winning the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship in 2004 and 2005. His spoken-word albums include A Stretch of Presence (1999), Run On Anything(2006) on Strange Famous Records and Live at the Typer Cannon Grand (2009) on Righteous Babe Records, which contains live recordings from his tours with Ani DiFranco. From 2007 he toured every year with the Poetry Revival groups, alongside Derrick C. Brown, Anis Mojgani and others, and he has published several books through Write Bloody Publishing. Wakefield remained celebrated as a prolific touring poet and performer for many years.
