Yolanda Wisher, Educator and Poet Laureate of Philadelphia

>> I'm Yolanda Wisher and I'm a multidisciplinary poet educator in the third poet laureate of Philadelphia. As a poet, I write, I teach, I perform, I do community organizing. And as the poet laureate, I serve as an ambassador for poetry throughout the city. Well, I work with the organization, a national organization called The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture. And it's a performance of a federal agency. It's not a real federal agency, but we're a grassroots organization that connects local organizing all over the country. And a lot of our events are arts infused participatory events that invite people to share their arts, their cultural perspective with each other. Well, this past February I was part of an event called the Poetic Address to the Nation, which was part of an initiative called the People's State of the Union, which is kind of our attempt to invite people to reflect on the state of the union as a democratic voice not just the monologue that kind of becomes the president's state of the union. And then, you know, we invite people to share their stories in story circles around the country. And the stories were coordinated and collated into a poetic address that was written from poets across the nation and performed by poets here in Philadelphia.