I Saw Tyler The Creator Without You And It Was Lame
by Annabelle Fields

tender is every night
i sleep without you next to me,
imprinted on the mattress,
warm dimple in my pillow.
blooming
lips blooming
into damp bouquets.

Paris in winter
you are a schizophrenic sunrise,
almost complete,
the dew is still on us
trembling before we share our last breath.
when you left,
everything became green light.
coffee and moonshine,
Fetty Wap and cigarettes,
green light blinding me, desirous and empty.
T. J. Eckleberg watching over everything
disapprovingly.

Fitzgerald is the only way I can remember you.
if this is West Egg,
you are Daisy,
and i will throw party after party, flash red lights
across the country until you see and come dancing home.
if i am Rosemary, almost complete,
you are the Divers
and i am in love with both sidesgruesome
and gentle,
scarred and smooth,
sober and blacked out,
beautiful and damned.

Anna is currently a Junior at Oakland School for the Arts and will be representing her team at the Unified District Poetry Slam in 2016! She competed in the Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam last year and regularly attends two of our free weekly writing and performance workshops facilitated by Gabriel Cortez and Trey Amos.  

To learn more about how to get involved in our programs, visit: www.youthspeaks.org 

April is National Poetry Month and we’re celebrating by providing daily #30for30 prompts. We have created 6 prompts so far that are inspired by either a Youth Speaks program or compelling art (in the form of a poem, picture, quote). We encourage all of you to use this as a unique opportunity to practice discipline and share what you produce with others. Feel free to tag #YouthSpeaks in any poetry responding to one of our #30for30 prompts. Follow us on IG and keep those pens moving…

Sharing the Dangers of Texting while Driving through Poetry

By José Vadi, National Digital Programs Director at Youth Speaks

In collaboration with AT&T’s It Can Wait® campaign, Youth Speaks is engaging the young people and local organizations of our national Brave New Voices (BNV) network around the dangers of texting while driving. Texting while driving is estimated to be involved in 200,000+ vehicle crashes each year, often causing injuries and deaths.1 This issue particularly impacts youth, which is why we’re getting involved and working with teens to talk about the risks through their own words.

Youth Speaks aims to deconstruct dominant narratives in hopes of achieving a more inclusive and active culture. Believing that young people have the tools to take control of their lives through language, we encourage youth to express themselves using their own vernacular. Youth Speaks is pleased to play a conduit role between four BNV Network organizations and It Can Wait.

Using educational tools and statistics provided by the It Can Wait campaign, our BNV partners submitted proposals to host events in their local communities to engage and educate young people about the risks of texting and driving.

After receiving submissions from throughout our national Brave New Voices network, we are pleased to announce that the four finalists for the campaign are:

* Get Lit: Get Lit is a nonprofit dedicated to bringing the power of poetic expression to at-risk teens in and around Los Angeles County through a standards-based curriculum, fusing classic literature and poetry with contemporary spoken word performance techniques. Get Lit will hold a series of poetry workshops and an open mic to feature the work of top youth poets.

* MassLEAP Collective: The Massachusetts Literary Education and Performance Collective– also known as MassLEAP– is dedicated to building and supporting spaces for youth to experience the transformative power of their own voices in community with one another. MassLEAP will host a series of poetry writing workshops in communities around Amherst.

* Word Beats & Life: Words Beats & Life offers free, vocational arts programming for youth in the District of Columbia. Word Beats & Life will host four workshops with spoken word poets to create poems, rap songs and video PSAs, as well as school based performances.

* WITS: Writers in Schools (WIT) engages youth in the power of reading and writing. WITS will develop a series of performance poetry workshops and presentations in schools.

Stay tuned for more updates throughout early 2015! Want to follow our national conversation?  

Follow @ItCanWait and @YouthSpeaks and take the It Can Wait pledge against texting while driving at ItCanWait.com. To learn more about Youth Speaks, please visit YouthSpeaks.org.

We are excited to share our very first Bus Ad campaign spreading our institutional mission and vision throughout the Bay Area. We hope to reach even more local youth in need of a safe space to find, develop, publicly present and apply their voices as agents of social change. Here are a couple of sightings of our latest ad in motion! 

If you catch one on your daily commute, take a picture and tag #YouthSpeaks on IG, Twitter or Facebook

Visit www.youthspeaks.org for more info
…because literacy is a need, not a want.

Here is a look back at the first Under-21 Open Mic of the new year. We had a packed house at SoleSpace in downtown Oakland that reflected the diversity of the Bay Area. Music was provided by none other than DJ Dion Decibels. SPOKES, our Youth Advisory Board, facilitated the entire evening from production, hosting, sign-ups and even sharing poetry on the mic. We had both first time and seasoned performers show up to read and perform their work (and a variety of styles represented). The feature poet was Oakland’s own, Obasi Davis (previous Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, SPOKES member and workshop attendee) who enlisted the talents of his closest friends, Tehan Ketema and Jonny Chang who are all currently attending First Wave in Madison, Wisconsin as freshmen. It was beautiful to see the creative progression catalyzed by years of active participation in Youth Speaks programs. We are grateful to witness the personal and artistic growth of these brilliant Bay Area youth. Additionally, local emcee and previous MC Olympics champ, Frak blessed the mic with a single off his latest project “Bagels”. Support these budding artists and come to the next Under-21 Open Mic at 826 Valencia in San Francisco on Friday, January 30th. 

We are excited to reveal our very first Youth Speaks BART Campaign highlighting the 18th Annual Bringing the Noise for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and 19th Annual Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam. It is our hope that these posters will reach as many Bay Area youth in need of a safe space as possible. Help us by taking a picture if you see either poster and tagging #YouthSpeaks on Instagram and Twitter.

Find refuge from the rain tonight at SoleSpace in Downtown Oakland for our Under-21 Open Mic! We offer a safe space for Bay Area youth to gather, share stories and build community. The list opens at 6:30pm, show starts at 7pm and goes til 9pm. There...

Find refuge from the rain tonight at SoleSpace in Downtown Oakland for our Under-21 Open Mic! We offer a safe space for Bay Area youth to gather, share stories and build community. The list opens at 6:30pm, show starts at 7pm and goes til 9pm. There will be a DJ, feature poet and an inspiring line-up that includes YOU! Bring a friend and make a new one. 

RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1515477458717121/

When students of color have white teachers

Listen to the complete Raise Up segment aired last Friday on NPR’s Latino USA. Thank you to reporter Yowei Shaw for her excellent coverage.