Meet our Grantee-Partner: Street Poets
Street Poets community around a fire circle. Photo courtesy of Street Poets.
Mission: Street Poets harnesses the healing power of poetry and music to build community and inspire our next generation to write, rap and dream a new world into being for us all.
In 1995, Christopher Henrikson initiated a poetry workshop at Camp Miller, a probation facility for boys in Los Angeles, California. By 1997, Chris had mobilized former workshop attendees into a touring performance group, advocating for juvenile justice reform through poetry and personal narratives. This initiative led to the establishment of Street Poets Inc.
Over the last 25+ years, Street Poets has broadened its reach by becoming a founding member of the Arts for Healing and Justice Network. This network has helped direct Los Angeles County funds toward creative youth intervention efforts and restorative, community-based solutions emphasizing healing, education, and empowerment over incarceration.
Street Poets’ program outreach extends beyond the juvenile justice system to youth ages 11-24 who are considered at-risk of entering the carceral system, pregnant, teen mothers, LGBTQ+, unhoused, immigrant, and Native American. Street Poets connects with youth through traditional and alternative schools, afterschool and community center programs, and camps throughout the Los Angeles area. Annually, Street Poets reaches approximately 600 young people directly and thousands more indirectly via performances, events, and its online community. Workshops recently extended beyond Los Angeles to the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona.
Street Poets staff and youth gather for a Street Poets Poetry workshop. Photo courtesy of Street Poets.
Street Poets employs poetry and metaphor as visionary tools informed by the wisdom, guidance, and practices of poetic ancestors from Indigenous cultures of Africa and the Americas. Program facilitators practice a gift-centered creative mentoring approach, which guides youth to recognize their wounds as gateways to their gifts rather than as pains to be avoided and projected out into the world. This approach seeks to break the cycle of violence through a deep transformational relationship with the literary arts.
Street Poets’ programs include:
- Writing workshops at middle schools, high schools, and juvenile probation camps that inspire youth to use the practice of poetry to bear witness to their own lives and the lives of those around them, speak their truth, and dream a new world into being.
- The Poetry in Motion Van, a mobile performance venue and recording studio to deliver poetic healing directly to the streets and communities where it is needed most.
- A quarterly public reading series that brings nationally and internationally known published poets and spoken word artists together with the Street Poets youth and creative community.
Street Poets staff and youth gather at a Poetry in Motion Van Event. Photo courtesy of Street Poets.
Receiving a spring 2023 Poetry Programs, Partnerships, and Innovation grant from the Poetry Foundation has enhanced Street Poets’ capacity and sustainability, allowing the organization to accomplish the following:
- Recruit new teaching artists
- Empower administrative staff to broaden programs
- Prepare for the development of and move to a new permanent building, the Center for Community, Culture, and Wellness, which is slated to open in 2025
The grant from the Poetry Foundation also helped with the facilitation of a leadership transition. In 2024, Shanae Sharon was appointed executive director of Street Poets, succeeding the organization’s founder, Christopher Henrikson. A woman of color, Sharon is a dedicated advocate for social justice and youth empowerment who looks forward to leading Street Poets into its next exciting phase of evolution.