West Hollywood Launches Youth Poetry Workshop Opportunity With Support From California Humanities

Press release from the City of West Hollywood:

February 17, 2021

The City of West Hollywood is getting the word out about a Youth Poetry Workshop opportunity for local youth ages 7-18. Distanced, Together: Youth Voices of West Hollywood in Quarantine, will be organized by City of West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace in conjunction with the nonprofit organization Get Lit-Words Ignite.

Distanced, Together: Youth Voices of West Hollywood in Quarantine will include storytelling and poetry writing workshops and public events. During quarantine as a result of protocols and safeguards related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the experiences of youth engaged in distance learning became a black box of lives hidden behind mute buttons and turned-off cameras. In response, Distanced, Together seeks to empower local youth to record and share their experiences through public speaking and self-expression.

Distanced, Together programming will run from March through December 2021 and will include:

• Up to 10 unique opportunities for a virtual workshop of up to one hour (scheduling flexible) writing gratitude poems based on Brian Sonia-Wallace’s West Hollywood holiday poem, an After The Music. The poem was developed into an animated video by the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division and is available for viewing at https://youtu.be/IVwN5HflB3c;
• Adaptability for youth ages 7-18, in class or as an assembly; and
• Poems to be included in a Youth Voices of West Hollywood in Quarantine anthology and students will have the opportunity to perform their original work and invite family at a virtual event at the end of the school year.

As local students return to school on Zoom, this workshop opportunity promises to help them notice what they appreciate and enjoy in this context while developing vital creative writing and self-expression skills. The free workshop can support an English class (working on critical reading and creative writing) or any other class or school function. A total of up to 10 free Distanced, Together workshops will be made available. For more information, and to schedule a workshop, an adult parent, guardian, or teacher may contact the City Poet Laureate, Brian Sonia-Wallace, to begin the process at brian@getlit.org.

The project is a collaboration with Get Lit-Words Ignite, a nonprofit organization that fuses classic and spoken word poetry to increase teen literacy on the page and in visual media. It cultivates enthusiastic learners emboldened to inspire social consciousness in diverse communities. For more information, please visit https://getlit.org.

The Distanced, Together: Youth Voices of West Hollywood in Quarantine project is made possible with the support of a $5,000 Humanities for All program grant from California Humanities, which supports public humanities projects that provide responsive and creative methods to deliver programming to community members when traditional in-person programming is not possible due to the coronavirus pandemic. For more information, please visit https://calhum.org/programs-initiatives/programs/humanities-for-all.

Each year, the City of West Hollywood celebrates National Poetry Month with a diverse slate of poetry programming. In 2021, the City will celebrate with virtual programming in adherence to COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

Brian Sonia-Wallace is the City of West Hollywood’s current City Poet Laureate. West Hollywood’s City Poet Laureate highlights the City of West Hollywood through the literary arts and, over a period of time, creates a new body of literary work that commemorates the diversity and vibrancy of the City. He serves as an official ambassador of West Hollywood’s vibrant literary culture, promoting poetry in West Hollywood, stimulating the transformative impact of poetry in the local community, and creating excitement about the written word.

For additional information about the City of West Hollywood’s City Poet Laureate program, please visit www.weho.org/arts or contact Michael Che, the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Coordinator, at (323) 848-6377 or at mche@weho.org. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing please call TTY (323) 848-6496.

The City of West Hollywood has declared a local emergency in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Individuals are advised to stay at home as much as possible and limit close interactions to those in your household. When in public, community members should maintain your space with social (physical) distancing of at least six feet, and cover your face. Public Health officials recommend that everyone, even those who are vaccinated, to continue to follow physical distancing and infection control directives and wear a clean face covering that securely covers both your nose and mouth when in in public.

This press release was produced by the City of West Hollywood. The views expressed here are the author’s own.