Stuff for the Teen Age

Stuff for the Teen Age: Poetry Workshops with Urban Word

This summer, The New York Public Library is pleased to partner with Urban Word NYC for a summer of poetry. Urban Word hosts poetry workshops year-round for teens, and they are free, free, free — the best kind of entertainment in New York City.

I’m psyched to hear some of the poetry that our amazing teens come up with to welcome their first visiting poet in the Summer Build-A-Peace series, Alexis DeVeaux. She’s a Harlem native that has spent the better part of 40 years fighting the good fight through poetry and activism.

Urban Word held the first Master Class, Wednesday July 13 at Urban Word from 3 to 5 p.m. Afterwards, attendees headed downtown to the Bowery Poetry Club to hear Ms. DeVeaux read from her own work from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Participants were asked to write poems based on the prompt, “I rarely say or speak about...” If you’re feeling creative, feel free to post your poem in the comments below.

If you can’t make it to any of the Master Classes, don’t worry. Hit Urban Word on Twitter to get the latest news, including their Prompt of the Week. You can post a poem to your blog and tweet them the link. You could even write a poem 140 characters at a time and tweet it to them. Get involved however you would like and show us how creative you can be.