Youth Speaks

MONDAYS Downtown Oakland YMCA

2350 Broadway Oakland, CA – a few blocks away from 19^th St. BART – Starts October 5^th – 4 pm

Build Your Body Like a Fortress w/ Leah-Joy Turnbull

Fortress examines self-awareness, self-expression, & personal freedom.  Participants will use poetry to navigate the pressures and problems of young adulthood & create a road map to their very best selves. Your word makes your world.

TUESDAYS Berkeley High

2223 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, CA, RM C325 – a few blocks away from Downtown Berkeley BART – Starts October 6^th – 4 pm

From the Backwoods to the Black Top: Exploring Our Realities w/ Terry Taplin & Matt Blesse

“This workshop lies somewhere between the bustle & the stillness/ the late-night grind/ the early morning sunrise/tired tongues, locked voices/ students shifting through classrooms/ the music within the unseen treble of our bones aching to crack free.”

WEDNESDAYS La Pena Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA – a few blocks from Ashby BART – Starts October 7^th – 4 pm

Sound Science Pt. II w/ Josh Landicho aka Bwan & Mandeep Sethi

In our universe, hip hop is poetry, and BIG, Pac, & Nas are on the same pedestal as Langston Hughes, Al Robles, and Sylvia Plath.  Come & add your voice to the canon.  If you don’t know, now you know…

TUESDAYS Youth Speaks

1663 Mission St. Ste. 604 San Francisco, CA – a few blocks from either 16th & Mission or Civic Center BART -Starts October 6^th – 4 pm

The Real Criminals w/ Dennis Kim aka Denizen Kane

“You won’t even think about looking at the real criminals.” -KRS-ONE.  Come chop it up about who the real criminals and gangsters are and what the real turf war looks like.  Writers, lyricists, activists, free thinkers, & rebels are welcome.  Come ready to question and to write.

THURSDAYS Youth Speaks

1663 Mission St. Ste. 604 San Francisco, CA – a few blocks from either 16th & Mission or Civic Center BART – Starts October 8^th – 4 pm

Anatomy Of Resistance w/ Meg Day

Come through to talk the real talk & walk the walk with the best minds of your generation. We’ll use our words as tools for healing, engines for growth & bullhorns of solidarity that cannot be silenced. We’ll write to reclaim the power of our stories, knowing we must be the change we wish to see in the world.

FRIDAYS The Bayanihan Center

1010 Mission St. San Francisco, CA (6^th & Mission) – a few blocks from Civic Center BART – Starts October 9^th – 4pm

Lost & Found in Translation w/ Josh Landicho aka Bwan & Rey Novicio aka mrREY

Lost & Found is Youth Speaks’ first-ever workshop for Tagalog speakers & examines the intersection of poetry, the City, the self, & the 7000 Philippine Islands.  Based in the SoMA, but open to youth from Sunnydale, Mission, Excelsior, Tenderloin, & your block. Salitang makapangyarihan.