Episode 32: Kevin Coval and Jamila Woods

Just in time for this week’s 16th Annual Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival (held in Chicago this year), I spoke with the founder of Louder Than a Bomb: the Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, Kevin Coval, Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors, as well as Jamila Woods, a poet, singer, playwright and founding member of YCA’s teaching artist corps. We talked about the power of poetry to transform lives and communities, the importance of creating spaces for young people to write and perform, and the complex realities of growing the scale of this kind of work. We also talked about Kevin’s recent book, and I got the treat of recording both Kevin and Jamila performing some of their own work.