4:30 - 5:30
Students from the Spoken Arts program at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts will open for 2023 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Ella Gordon as our featured reader.
Gordon is a Senior at Oakland Technical High School and has loved poetry for as long as she’s been able to read and write. Poetry started her addiction to emotion, her desire to convey a reaction or feeling that seemed so immense that it couldn’t have come from words. But poetry, to her, is an expression beyond words, it’s a voice. Poetry creates a gateway for her to navigate the world, it allows her to find meaning and purpose in even the most minute or mundane aspects of life and express her passion for relevant issues.
The Oakland Youth Poet Laureate program is a citywide effort to celebrate literacy through poetry. Each year they accept applications from talented Oakland writers (ages 13-18) to join a community of young poets. Spoken Artists at Ruth Asawa explore their creative voice(s) through poetry, dramatic and comedic performance, improvisation, rap and public speaking.