Street Poets is finally putting down permanent roots in the community we’ve served for the past 25+ years. Thanks to capital grants from the Annenberg Foundation and another prominent Los Angeles-based foundation, we’ve secured the site for the future Street Poets Center for Community, Culture & Wellness across the street from John Adams Middle School. The Center will include a recording studio, media lab and community space for youth poetry performances and writing circles, as well as dance and drumming workshops.

Welcome to the latest addition to our leadership team, Barbara Fant. A native of Ohio, Barbara brings years of experience as a poet, teaching artist, foundation administrator and community-builder to Street Poets at an exciting time of change for our organization and for the city we serve.

For the second year in a row, Street Poets was invited to participate in the annual international Youth Initiative Forum in Jarna, Sweden. SP Teaching Artists Art Quiros and Frank Escamilla, along with youth leader Jaynese “Ladybug” Poole, were asked to share their creative gifts with the conference participants, hosting an open-mic event as well writing and dance workshops.

Most importantly perhaps, a poetic dialogue begins — between two communities that share not only deep wounds, but powerful gifts capable of transforming our world into something in which we can all believe. This, in the end, is why we are here.