photo by Jeremy Hogan

"Frank Messina is one of the most widely recognized young poets living in America today." (Playboy Magazine). He's also a prolific painter and film actor. 

Author of the critically acclaimed Full Count: The Book of Mets Poetry and Disorderly Conduct, Messina's work tackles subjects relating to human nature including themes of love, struggle, war, civic responsibility and sports fanaticism. An avid baseball enthusiast, his baseball poems and musings have seeped into the realm of pop-culture, being the subject of debate and commentary on The Howard Stern Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live and SNY-TV's Mets Weekly, where Messina's Mets-related verse is set to the visual backdrop of glorious (and not so glorious) moments in Mets history. As a result, sports fans around the world refer to Messina as "The Mets Poet".

Messina's poetry has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, FOX News, PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The CBS Early Show, SportsNet New York, Sports Illustrated and published in several poetry journals, college textbooks and magazines around the world including Beloit Poetry Journal, Boog City, Ground Zero: New Yorkers Respond, the 9/11 Peace Poetry Project, Long Shot, New York Press, Oxford Magazine, Published in Heaven Poster Series, Oxalis, Footwork: The Paterson Literary Review, Frank of Paris, Newark Writer's Journal.

He has been a frequent guest on National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Network. His 9/11-related poems, including Bicycle, have gained international attention and are included in the curriculum at several educational institutions including the University of London. In August, 2013, Messina's original hand-written journal containing the original drafts of Bicycle and other 9/11-related poems was accessioned into the National September 11 Memorial & Museum's permanent collection.

Messina earned a BA in English from St. Thomas Aquinas College and a Woolrich Poetry Fellowship to Columbia University where he studied under David Ignatow and later with Alan Dugan at the Poetry Writing Workshop at Indiana University.

Messina first gained notoriety as the founder of the underground band, Spoken Motion, whose signature ability to fuse bold lyrical content with eclectic jazz and experimental rock music helped catapult the fledgling spoken word genre of the 1990's to commercial success. The group featured percussionist Larry McDonald, Elliott Levin of Cecil Taylor's Phthongas on sax and flute, Bob Sushko on guitar, Wes Jensen on drums and bassist Joe Isgro.

Frank Messina & Spoken Motion's album, Biting the Tongue, includes special guest appearances by the legendary composer David Amram, jazz violinist Billy Bang of the Sun Ra Arkestra and Scott Murawski and Mark Mercier of Max Creek. The album made the Top 20 Spoken Word Chart immediately after its July, '98 release date and remained for 16 weeks. In addition, track 1 from the album, I Want to Hear Poetry, is included on the 1998 College Radio's Best of The Indies compilation CD. The same track hit #1 on the mp3.com Spoken Word Charts in April, 1999.

He also founded the all-star "Spoke n' Roll" band, OCTOPOET, in 1999. The experimental group has featured members of the Spin Doctors, Max Creek, Sun Ra, Gil Scott-Heron Band and Spoken Motion plus Mark Egan, saxophonist Erik Lawrence and vocalists Lucy Woodward, Dawn Lorentz and Chanda Rule. Spanning his career, Messina has recorded over 200 spoken word & music compositions including works from Biting the Tongue (1998), Absorb (1999), Rage (1999), The Long Road to Nowheresville (2004) and Walking Home (2007).

As an actor, Messina appears in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (2019), HBO's Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014), in a starring role in Rowan Cinema's Lawn of the Year and in a co-starring role as "Ginger Lafferty" in Troma Films' Toxic Tutu (2017).

Messina is a prolific painter, known to include shredded poems, pharmaceuticals and poppy seeds in his large, dramatic canvas works. As a burgeoning artist with an illustrious past, his paintings hang in the private collections of rock stars, jazz musicians, writers, governors and fashion models around the world.

In 2010, Messina was commissioned as an honorary Kentucky Colonel by Governor Steve Beshear and Secretary of State Trey Grayson. As an honorary colonel, Frank joins the ranks of Elvis Presley, Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Muhammad Ali and Lyndon B. Johnson.  Messina serves as Creative Advisor to the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence Project of Orlando Florida and resides in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Frank Messina: The Official Website

Frank Messina is a BMI-affiliated recording artist
and a member of the Screen Actors Guild, The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Actors' Equity Association and the National Writers Union.
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