Shakespeare? Jazz? Poetry? Radio broadcasting? Vocal music? Video production? Yes, yes, and more yesses. All of these are coming soon, summer into fall, to Detroit teens through the Detroit School of Arts. Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking about InsideOut Literary Arts' part...

OK, friends, help me out here. I seek interpretation of one of those moments of weirdness in which a window opens up onto the state of things. Or does it? The moment in question: I'm at the drive-through window of my bank last Friday, depositing a check and getting some...

A poem in your pocket? A poem in your mind or heart? I'm happy to report that here in Detroit, The Word is thriving, and for this poet, as National Poetry Month comes to a close, it's been a whirl of a Week in Words.

Word, as in --...

Spring is the mischief in me, famously wrote Robert Frost, conjuring the rising spirit of the spring season as he tries to get a literal-minded, tradition-bound neighbor to contemplate 'elves' in "Mending Wall." Those words have stayed with me since high school and, like the mischief they are, pop into...

A teacher walks into a CVS on Detroit's east side and is greeted warmly by a group of children, her former students. Nothing unusual there, except that she hasn't seen the children in a long time. They've grown, and they cluster and clamor around her with great eagerness and affection....

What is our heritage? What do we do with the inheritance we receive? This core question came to mind as I attended the screening of Wayne State University guest faculty Julie Dash's The Rosa Parks Story last weekend at the Detroit Institute of Arts Film Theatre. With Angela...

Like most Detroiters, I have a special fondness for Belle Isle. I've lived close to the Detroit River since 2005, and even when I don't walk or bike on the island or enjoy the solitude, which I do fairly often, knowing that our island sanctuary is there provides respite to...

Like educators around the country, I feel that Sandy Hook Elementary is my school and its children are my children. I have signed every online petition I can to abolish automatic weapons. I have called Governor Snyder's office urging him not to sign the bill that would allow guns in...

I have the good fortune of traveling a lot. Wherever my travels take me, I represent Detroit proudly and I waste no opportunity to boast about the voices of the city's youth. (I post this now from Las Vegas, where I am presenting a session for the National...

As teachers, we touch many lives. Sometimes we know the effect, but often we do not. Last week, when I received an email from Shirley Bolden -- a former InsideOut Literary Arts Project student in middle school, recently a reporter with B.L.A.C. (Black Life Arts and...

People often ask me, why poetry? Isn't it just a frill? A time-waster? Don't urban youth who face so many educational challenges need something "rigorous?" As a poet, I try not to stumble too personally over this particular argument. I know the patience and discipline, the mental and linguistic dexterity...

They buried the bully at Blackwell Institute this year. I learned this fact during a recent visit to the K-8 school. In fact, students started their year bidding the bully adieu in a service officiated by a local pastor, with each child writing a memory of being bullied on a...

Last week, in Washington, D.C. for National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, InsideOut's Ariana Washington was one of only six young people invited from across the country to perform for "Heroes of Hope" -- a program dedicated to the heroes who have helped young people through devastating life events. Receiving...

I am a card-carrying believer in poetry as a healer, as fervent as fellow poet Gregory Orr, author of Poetry as Survival.

Like me, I think Orr would be quite pleased to see how poetry is winding its way into the center of healing conversations and efforts...

One of my main motivations in founding InsideOut Literary Arts Project in 1995 was to give the lie to prevailing stereotypes of urban youth. As a classroom teacher, I had come to know firsthand the spirit, joy, talent, quirkiness, individuality, hope, humor, dreams, intellect -- you name it...

A snobberie, a soire, a sassy fashion gathering, a sip, a shop and a salute -- all of this, as well as a whole lot of poetry, will be going on Thursday, Feb. 23 from 5 to 8 p.m. in Rachel Lutz's remarkable Peacock Room in Detroit's Park...

Like the rest of the Detroit arts community, we at InsideOut Literary Arts gave a collective cheer at Friday's news that Naomi Long Madgett was awarded the 2012 Kresge Eminent Artist Award. At 88, and going strong, Ms. Madgett continues to be a powerful, generous force for poetry...

At InsideOut Literary Arts Project we witness each day the way the voices of Detroit's young people reshape and strengthen our community. The backbone of InsideOut is a cadre of dedicated creative writers who, year after year, in classrooms all across Detroit, put pencils into children's hands to help them...

Seventeen years ago, on an otherwise unremarkable summer afternoon, Hollywood filmmaker Bob Shaye changed my life. Shaye, a Detroit native and supporter of my foray into poetry activism with Detroit youth, sent me a letter suggesting that going citywide with my work would be a "supremely valuable cultural goal.'' Since...