Join us in a special partnership with InsideOut Literary Arts to showcase some of Detroit’s finest youth and adult poets for a poetry reading celebrating all things Detroit! This reading, in conjunction with the How We Make the Planet Move: The Detroit Collection Part 1 exhibition, will include featured performances, an open mic, and Q & A. Hosted by La Shaun phoenix Moore.
Designed to acknowledge the long-standing history of artists who have called Detroit home and the area’s rich and diverse community of practitioners, the Detroit Collection is particularly focused on art from the 1960s to the present in a variety of media. How We Make the Planet Move takes its title from a poem by Detroit-born poet, jessica Care moore, A Poem Saved My Life: An Homage to Detroit. This event celebrates the next generations of Detroit’s great poets.
Founded in 1995, InsideOut Literary Arts has served over 70,000 students from the Metro Detroit area with high-quality, life-enhancing literary arts experiences in the classroom and in the community.
La Shaun phoenix Moore is a Detroit-based vocalist, spoken word artist, activist, culture creator and the coach of the InsideOut Literary Arts Performance Troupe. Moore’s interdisciplinary work is infused with her love for the city of Detroit, hip-hop, God, social justice, and her black momma.
InsideOut Literary Arts Youth Performance Troupe Biographies:
Aniya Davis is a member of the 2024 InsideOut Literary Arts Youth Performance Troupe. She has been writing since 2021 and loves to learn new ways to express herself through writing. Starting out in an afterschool program at Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, Aniya learned to share her gifts with the world through spoken word poetry. She hopes to continue penning words that bring voice to her experiences and that speak truth to power for others.
Faith Coats is a Black 17-year-old poet based in Detroit. She is a member of the 2024 InsideOut Literary Arts Youth Performance Troupe, a musician, a sister, a friend, and an artist. Her work centers around discussing the issues that young teens and adults face when discovering themselves. She has discovered herself through this expression of art and hopes anyone who reads her work will do the same.
Jessica Lee also known under MissJexiLee and 李洁茜 is a multimedia artist based in Detroit and a member of the 2024 InsideOut Youth Performance Troupe. Her work centers around the Asian American experience and explores how femininity contrasts and effects that experience as a first-generation immigrant. She writes for those who came before her and those who will come after her. Jessica is the co-founder of Detroit Film and Art Collective.
Jordyn Mousa-Sage (Jj) is a queer, Lebanese-Iraqi literary artist who works in English and Arabic. Born in Beirut, Jordyn and their family are immigrants to the land we know but do not despair of cultural divides. Jj began writing poetry in their sophomore year of high school with after rereading some of their mother’s poetry. They later became a member of the 2024 InsideOut Youth Performance Troupe, publishing in the Michigan Reading Association’s Kaleidoscope Magazine that same year.
Poet Biographies:
Kahn Santori Davison is currently a freelance journalist for the “Detroit Metro Times” and “Model D.” He’s a Cave Canem fellow whose works have been featured in The Alabama Poetry Society, The Baltimore Review, Barbaric Yap, Callaloo, and Black Renaissance Noire, among others. He’s the author of the poetry book Blaze and is a recipient of the 2015 Kresge Literary Arts Fellowship and the recipient of the 2019 Documenting Detroit photography fellowship.
Nandi Comer is the Poet Laureate of Michigan. She is the author of two poetry collections, American Family: A Syndrome and Tapping Out which was awarded the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award. She has won numerous awards and fellowships including a 2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit award. She currently serves as a poetry editor for Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora and is the co-director of Detroit Lit, a program dedicated to providing opportunities to narrative makers of color in Detroit.
Ashley Adams known as “Galaxy” is an award winning spoken word artist who was born and raised in Detroit. She began writing poetry as a form of expression while pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree at Eastern Michigan University. Since graduation she has performed for crowds both in-person and virtually, reaching audiences all over the world. She is always excited for the opportunity to share her poetry with the world and perform thought provoking pieces. She works as a Writer-in Residence at InsideOut Literary Arts.
Tagged: 2025, how we make the planet move, lectures, poetry
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