Get Lit Players - Get lit rising: Words ignite. Claim your poem. Claim your life

An imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Childrens Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 www.simonandschuster.com 20827 N.W. Cornell Road, Suite 500 Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-9808 503-531-8700 / 503-531-8773 fax www.beyondword.com This Beyond Words/Simon Pulse edition October 2016 Compilation copyright 2016 by Get LitWords Ignite, Inc. Cover copyright 2016 by Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Beyond Words is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and the Beyond Words logo is a registered trademark of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc. Managing Editor: Lindsay S. Easterbrooks-Brown Copyeditors: Jennifer Weaver-Neist, Emmalisa Sparrow Cover design: Sara E. Blum Jacket Illustration copyright 2016 by iStockphoto.com Interior design: Devon Smith Photographer: Daniel Sawyer Schaefer Composition: William H. Brunson Typography Services The text of this book was set in Arno Pro and Felt Tip. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lane, Diane Luby, author, editor. | Get Lit Players, author. Title: Get lit rising : Words ignite. Claim your poem.

Claim your life. / Diane Luby Lane and the Get Lit Players. Description: New York : Simon Pulse/Beyond Words, 2016. Identifiers: LCCN 2015046398 (print) | LCCN 2016007076 (ebook) | ISBN 9781582705767 (hardback) | ISBN 9781582705774 (paperback) | ISBN 9781481457200 (eBook) Subjects: LCSH: PoetryJuvenile literature. | PoetryAuthorshipJuvenile literature. | Poets, American21st centuryBiographyJuvenile literature. | American poetry21st centuryHistory and criticismJuvenile literature. | Childrens poetry, American. | BISAC: JUVENILE NONFICTION / Poetry / General. | JUVENILE NONFICTION / Biography & Autobiography / Performing Arts. | JUVENILE NONFICTION / Language Arts / Composition & Creative Writing. | JUVENILE NONFICTION / Language Arts / Composition & Creative Writing.

Classification: LCC PN1031 .G456 2016 (print) | LCC PN1031 (ebook) | DDC 808.1dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046398 For Viveca Lindfors And every soul who Dares to Make a difference. PROCEEDS FROM THE SALES OF THIS BOOK GO DIRECTLY TO THE OUTREACH PROGRAMS AT It is important that I tell you their names... Ta-Nehisi Coates

As we progressed into the 80s and 90s, however, the troglodytes setting policy and making budgets began the slow decline and ultimate decimation of funding for arts education in our public schools. As this money disappeared, dropout rates increased. As dropout rates increased, crime rates rose. As crime rates rose, more prisons were built. We criminalized more and more nonviolent offenses, and our jails were soon full of young men and women who had fallen from the margins of society into a web of incarceration. In the last twenty years, twenty-two prisons were built in the state of California and, in that same time, only two universities.

In my work inside prisons, I regularly encounter the results of our failed education policy. Anecdotally, I can tell you that roughly 80 percent of those incarcerated had little to no arts education in their public schools. So is there a connection between our education policy and our incarceration rate? Undoubtedly. Ask any child lucky enough to be involved with arts programs. Ask the kids at Get Lit or Inner-City Arts or in programs we run at the Actors Gang. The arts are a lifeline for children with learning difficulties or those not gifted with mathematical brains or those who, try as they will, cant get excited about the periodic table.

My access to the arts as a freshman and as a sophomore in high school was the only reason I had any enthusiasm to go to school. I was lost in other subjects. My brain wasnt made that way. Was I stigmatized? No. I had teachers who understood that I was not on my way to a career in physics and encouraged the talents that I did possess. One of them, an English teacher named Thomas Dolan, got me involved in theater.

Today, Tom Dolan would probably not have a job. Depriving our children of the artsa passion that may keep them interested in their own educationis, in essence, giving up on those children. It is basically eliminating the sole reason that many of those children may have to stay involved with their education. Our current education policy is not only detrimental to a childs education; it is also a threat to the safety and health of society at large. I have personally seen and met with hundreds of children whose lives have been turned around by art. Most inspiring have been the teen poets from Get Lit, who, through their involvement with this organization, have reignited their commitment to their own education.

It wasnt the government that made this happen. It was the passion and belief of one individual, a young mother and actress named Diane Luby Lane, who made Get Lit happen. It was her vision and her relentless pursuit of funding for her vision that created an outlet to inspire the kids that our schools had left behind. And inspire she did. Not only the children who became part of Get Lit but also everyone who has heard the words that have come out of these young poets souls. I have sat at the monthly Get Lit poetry slams at the Actors Gang theater and have witnessed lives transformed by art.

I have heard passionate and talented young artists testify their truth. I have seen the shy and intimidated become strong and empowered. I have wept at the profound effect that words can have on all of us and have been reminded of the purpose and mission of poetry itself. I have seen young poets from Get Lit go from alienated youth to college-bound scholarship students. It doesnt take much. It takes individuals like Diane.

She held a light out so that they could find their way. This essential light that Get Lit provides gives children an illuminated path away from gangs and the fast track to the prison system that is all too prevalent in the United States. I hope someday the troglodytes figure out the connection between the arts and public safety. When our leaders finally understand that arts education is an essential and necessary part of a childs developmentwhen comprehensive arts programs are provided that leave no child behindlet us have the grace and empathy to applaud our leaders for their vision and forward-thinking policy. This change must happen. It is essential if we want a future where the United States doesnt lead the world in incarceration rates.