Can Poetry Change A Person?

Stand back. This is a powerful talk from Chris Henrikson founder of Street Poets Inc. An organisation that is committed to building a community that brings together different racial, ethnic and socio-economic segments of the city of Los Angeles around the transformational power of the creative process.

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Prep school kid goes to Duke, writes a script that sells to Hollywood, moves to LA. He has it all … or does he?

Something is missing. He begins volunteering in a juvenile detention camp and his life turns upside down. He spends the next 15 years learning the hard way how to turn gangbangers and drug dealers into community leaders and healers.

His conclusion: Street Poets Inc., the organization he founded to bring the transformational power of writing, music and indigenous healing to the juvenile halls, schools and streets of Los Angeles.