Marc Smith has been critical of the commercially successful Def Poetry television and Broadway live stage shows produced by Russell Simmons, decrying it as "an exploitive entertainment [program that] diminished the value and aesthetic of performance poetry". International awards and Poetry Slam World Cup At European level, the European Poetry Slam Championship (or European Slampionship) takes place every year. The Poetry Slam World Cup (Coupe du Monde de Slam, organised in France) also takes place every year. In 2022, Italy won the XVI Poetry Slam World Cup for the second time, represented by performance artist, writer, poet, and actor Lorenzo Maragoni, member of the artistic collective WOW - Incendi Spontanei, same as the former world champion Giuliano Logos. Academia As of 2011, four poets who have competed at National Poetry Slam have won National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Fellowships for Literature: Hal Sirowitz (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1993) won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 1994 Jeffrey McDaniel (who was on numerous DC and California slam teams in the mid to late 1990s) won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2003 Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (who was on the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam team in 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2010) won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2011 As of 2017, one poet who has competed at National Poetry Slam has won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Tyehimba Jess, who competed as a part of Chicago's Green Mill team twice. A number of poets belong to both academia and slam: Jeffrey McDaniel slammed on several poetry slam teams, and has since published several books and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Patricia Smith, a four-time national slam champion, went on to win several prestigious literary awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA Fellowship, and being inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent in 2006. Bob Holman founded the Nuyorican Poetry Slam has taught for years at the New School, Bard, Columbia and NYU. Craig Arnold won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and has competed at slams. Kip Fulbeck, a professor of art at the University of California, Santa Barbara competed in slam in the early-1990s and initiated the first spoken word course to be taught as part of a college art program's core curriculum. Javon Johnson was national slam poetry champion in 2003 and 2004,