2015-2020: Aja “Citywide Poets brought me to the realization that everybody is individual and important.” Before I started Citywide Poets, I wasn’t doing poetry in secret, but I did feel like an underground artist. It started off as a class assignment back in sixth grade and […]
2010-2015: Candance Candance performing her original work at InsideOut’s inaugural Share the Light benefit. (2017) Why I Write by Candance I write when people say I taIk too much. I write to set the world aflame. I write to speak for those who are afraid […]
2005-2010: Justin Rogers “Citywide Poets was pivotal in my social and professional life because it offered me a sense of direction and hope.” When Writer-in-Residence Nandi Comer found me in 12th grade of high school, I was a very shy student trying to navigate where […]
2000-2005: Jasmine Dorsey “This program is the reason I graduated high school.” I didn’t belong to any crew or group in high school because I always felt so different. I always felt alone because I felt too mature to even have friends in high school. […]
1995-2000: Michael R. Jackson Photo Credit: Zack DeZon “Literally every aspect of my writing career came because a teacher encouraged me.” I’m Michael R. Jackson, and I’m from Detroit, Michigan. I grew up on the west side of Detroit, right off the Southfield Freeway. Growing […]
Thriving Together is a three-year-long environmental justice and creative writing program led by the Detroit Zoological Society and InsideOut Literary Arts. In the summer of 2020, we quickly transitioned the program online after stay-at-home orders were enacted. “While students would normally be wearing waders in the Detroit River and […]
InsideOut Literary Arts was held up as a literary organization that nurtures and uplifts Black voices across the United States.
In 2019, the Detroit Free Press found that “ninety percent of teachers and principals across the Detroit Public Schools Community District reported that more than half their students have been impacted by trauma that impedes their learning.” Addressing trauma and the social-emotional needs of our students has always […]
