Been out of pocket for a few days fighting off a cold. Feeling on the mend for the most part now.
Here is a great local story from the SF Bay Guardian:
“Poetry’s made a big difference in my life. It’s allowed me to express myself in ways that I never would have been able to,” says Erica McMath Sheppard, 17, one the winners of Sat/3’s Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam at the Warfield Theater.
Her victory was the culmination of many years of hard work. Erica started participating in the Youth Speaks program when she was 13, and competing in the yearly slam competition at 14 years old. On Saturday, before a sold out crowd at the Warfield, she spoke with a light borne of a difficult adolescence, one spent in the cold bureaucracy of Child Protective Services, but through which she has nonetheless thrived academically.
“You look at America in the 21st century, who is the voice? What does it look like?” Youth Speaks executive director James Kass founded the non-profit in 1996 to provide public school kids with access to arts education in a state where such programs are rapidly being downsized into nonexistence. He says that, although professional artists have emerged from Youth Speaks’ programs, what the YS assemblies, after school workshops, and guest speakers really want to accomplish is the development of teens’ creativity, and by extension, their ability to think critically about the problems of the day. “Some kids go into teaching, go into non profit work,” he says. “This is about developing leaders.” Link to article…