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1. 1 media/medialibrarythumbnailsscreenshot.jpg 2013-10-30T17:19:10-07:00 Gabriel Peters-Lazaro 3bc3965831120bc593545fef6d0da73657e21ea0 Poetry Karl Baumann 16 structured_gallery 2014-07-24T14:39:34-07:00 Karl Baumann 8f815d830edc63efb3e0a280741f8a0e18e65a8f
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3. 1 media/Knock Knock Def Jam Poetry.png 2014-06-06T13:43:21-07:00 Sangita Shresthova 497a02d289c277275bc5ece441097deedf8135e7 Media About Literacy, Education, and the Arts Diana Lee 7 structured_gallery 2014-07-23T22:18:06-07:00 Diana Lee 0c994d7f9dc5ee78dc93d8c823c300c060b9c890
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• 1 media/Screen Shot 2014-10-22 at 8.48.03 AM.png media/Screen Shot 2014-10-22 at 8.48.03 AM.png media/youthspeaks.jpg 2014-10-09T10:27:41-07:00 Youth Speaks 23 Org page for youth Speaks plain 2014-10-28T10:38:09-07:00
   

  "When I started to write about myself as far as like my identity of being a queer male of color from East Oakland, that was terrifying...It becomes that you realize you have a responsibility, something that started off as just me needing to express myself because I didn’t have nobody to talk to or I didn’t think anyone would listen to me, becomes other people need to hear this because I know there's someone else from where I'm from or from a similar place.  This can change something for them."

  - Joshua Merchant, Off/Page Project Fellow, poet, and activist

  About 

  Youth Speaks is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that seeks to empower the voices of the next generation. Its mission is to provide a safe space for young leaders, self-defined artists, and visionary activists to explore, develop, perform, and publish their works and become agents of social change. In addition to providing educational programming, Youth Speaks presents an number of both local and national youth poetry slams, festivals, and reading series' to provide a forum for young artists to be heard. 
  Check out the Youth Speaks YouTube page to see performances. Find them on Facebook and Tumblr. and follow them on Twitter for updates.
  The Off/Page project is an offshoot of Youth Speaks and the Center for Investigative Reporting.  Off/Page encourages youth to bring together serious, journalistic facts and relatable, memorable poetry.  For instance, Off/Page hired young poet and activist Joshua Merchant to create a series of poetry workshops for youth in Stockton, one of the largest US cities to file for bankruptcy.  While Merchant led the workshops and taught young people in Stockton how to use poetry and spoken word to express their lives, the journalistic wing researched statistics and facts about Stockton.  The young poets were then able to combine this research with their poetry to create powerful political statements about life in a failing city. 
• 1 media/medialibrarythumbnailsscreenshot.jpg 2013-10-30T17:19:10-07:00 Poetry 18 structured_gallery 2014-11-04T13:36:25-08:00
  Poetry is a powerful and playful medium for storytelling. It's been developed since ancient Sumerian, Chinese, and Greek times. Today there are a number of different genres that permeate youth and popular culture. One particularly dominant form is the use of "Slam Poetry" amongst activist and literacy organizations.
  Poetry, and "Slam Poetry" in particular, are useful tools for developing public speaking skills, complex story structure techniques, and metaphorical uses of language. Poetic genres are often defined by structural rules with a range of rigidity, Haiku being a classic example. These rules help define creative constraints in which writers learn to play against or develop.
  The element of live performance in poetry offers another visceral dimension in which poets can play. Daniel Beaty's "Knock Knock" illustrates the nuanced, emotional intensity that can be reached with a short-form, repetitive poetic structure. In Beaty's piece, he uses a single phrase "knock knock" as a thematic cue that runs throughout and develops from his personal story of his father's incarceration to an inspirational rallying of disenfranchised Black Americans. Beaty has since moved on to develop programs to teach youth how to harness poetry to overcome painful circumstances and empower themselves. 
  Amongst the organizations analyzed, such as Youth Speak and their Brave New Voices project, slam poetry has become a cornerstone for empowering youth and developing their literacy skills. One common use of their poetic storytelling is to share personal experiences that are creatively frame by larger themes and systematic issues, such as gender, racial, and economic inequality.