Street Poets

Street Poets led weekly, in-person poetry-writing workshop series at los angeles county middle and high schools throughout the year including at the following sites: panorama city high school, vox collegiate middle school, college bridge academy compton, west adams prep high school, metropolitan high school, as well as at wolf connection (with students from r. rex parris high school and desert winds high school). In addition, in ongoing multi-year partnership, Street Poets led a 5-day intensive workshop series at miami high school (miami, az). The schools programs served a total of about 400 youth.

Our music program offered 30 weekly virtual "beats & rhymes drop-in, music-making workshops throughout the year for youth and young adults, ages 13-25, serving a group of about 15 participants. In addition, in collaboration with rhythm arts alliance, we held a music fellowship program, serving a selected cohort of 12 youth with nearly 40 group and one-on-one sessions, including master/professional artists who could provide insight and workshopping about the music and recording industry. Youth were able to experience an in-depth curriculum, covering areas that included music production, beatmaking, musical engineering, writing, performance, recording and production. Many of the youth from both the drop-in "beats & rhymes" program and the music fellowship helped produce, write, perform and record for the original, Street Poets hip-hop and spoken word album entitled "cosmic elements of creation. "in addition, we collaborated with two other organizations (jail guitar doors and give a beat) to provide twice-a-week, additional music recording and production programming to young adults through a program called "fresh tracks," serving an average of 15 system-impacted or at-risk young adults in the west hollywood location of the city - learning in a state of the art studio with artist such as the legendary, wayne kramer.

In collaboration with arts for healing & justice network (ahjn), Street Poets led weekly and one-time poetry-writing and music recording workshops, virtually and in-person, at and with los angeles county probation department and community sites/platforms, including: camp afflerbuagh, horace mann continuation school (high school juvenile day reporting center site), zoe house, soledad enrichment action program (sea), and camp kilpatrick, serving 75-100 youth incarcerated, on probation, or a at-risk of incarceration aged 13-18.

Seeking peace: we facilitated over 50 hybrid (virtual and in-person) "seeking peace" poetry & meditation workshops via zoom throughout the year, serving an average attendance of 10-20 youth and young adult participants weekly.open mic/street Poets presents & dj sessions: we hosted 5 in-person community open-mic events and public poetry readings/interviews over the course of the year, mostly at comunitymade in the downtown los angeles arts district, averaging 45 attendees at each. Our featured artists at each event were well-established, professional Poets and performers from across the country; and our audience spanned from students to alumni, to their families, Street Poets supporters, and beyond. These events offer the youth in our community an opportunity to have their voices and creativity heard, as well as be exposed to Poets and other professional artists. Other special collaborations included: partnering with jeff wagner agency to write and perform an original poem at an in-person opening of their new jasper apartments, where our original poem is buried within the walls of the dtla building. We also participated in a hip hop round table conversation with the paris olympics delegation. Other community workshops: Street Poets facilitated additional, one-off and short-series performances and workshops, including our poetry and gardening program, which we facilitated at metropolitan high school. Our professional development sessions, through our partnership with ahjn, with the whittier, pasadena, and pomona unified school districts; and programming for soledad enrichment action (sea), serving both youth and adults virtually and in person. Through these programs, Street Poets reached over 200 additional youth and adults. Street Poets also participated in conferences and invites to speak and present for convenings, including a "navigating grief" workshop in partnership with new hope grief, all access fest in partnership with music forward foundation, a girls empowerment conference with 200 attendees, workshop facilitation for youth mentor coalition, and participation in "invest in youth coalition budget townhall," reaching over 300 more individuals in total. We mentored (by phone, texting, conference platforms such as zoom, and in person) a dozen or so current and former students, while maintaining regular email and social media contact with a dedicated network of over a hundred students and alumni and supporters.