Meet Our Grantee-Partner: Southern Word
Mission: Through the literary and performing arts, Southern Word offers creative solutions for youth to build literacy and presentation skills, reconnect to their education and lives, and act as leaders in the improvement of their communities. We are committed to providing youth, especially in under-served communities, with as many opportunities as possible to develop and publicly present their voices both live and in print, video, audio and digital media.
Southern Word serves Tennessee youth by providing poetry-centered school residencies and workshops with a focus on spoken word poetry. Beginning in 2008, youth development professionals, writers, and poets built Southern Word from the ground up with school and community partners in Davidson County, Tennessee. Since then, the nonprofit organization has expanded programming to young people from third grade through college in eight Tennessee counties.
Southern Word began with the goal of addressing learning barriers faced by students within Tennessee schools, especially in schools with high literacy needs. Programs expanded to include writing of all genres along with music production with an emphasis on fostering safe and connected learning communities for young people in school and out-of-school spaces. Southern Word’s deepest school integration to date is a full-time Writers’s Room coordinator at Stratford STEM Magnet School who facilitates a wide array of creative and traditional literacy and arts interventions for students.
Mentor Tia Smedley working with a student in a school residency
Spoken word poetry has been identified as one of the most effective methods for engaging teens in an academic setting. It combines literacy and presentation skills that address standard curriculum objectives while giving students the chance to express themselves, engage artistic competencies, and validate their aspirations. Southern Word staff have found that spoken word poetry unites students across social boundaries and that the poet is a positive archetype to counter detrimental youth influences. It also helps develop leadership skills, especially in students who wouldn’t have been identified as leaders by traditional frameworks.
Southern Word has expanded beyond K-12 programming to serve Nashville State Community College and Tennessee State University students. Its college programming operates from the belief that establishing writing skills during the formative first year of a student’s college career is the foundation for success in all college coursework. To this end, Southern Word provides writing mentors to assist students with composition assignments. Additionally, spoken word groups supported by Southern Word mentors provide supportive spaces for first-generation college students and students from other underrepresented demographics.
As Southern Word has grown project by project, its growth sometimes outpaces the development of administrative infrastructure and its ability to replace shifts in funding. The organization has found that it can be more difficult to fundraise for administrative needs and for larger sources of support that might sunset. Receiving a fall 2022 Poetry Programs, Partnerships, and Innovation grant from the Poetry Foundation has given Southern Word the discretionary flexibility to fulfill administrative needs and respond to shifts in programmatic support that have been vulnerable to disruption of service.
Southern Word has been fortunate to retain mentors over the years, but the increasing cost of living in the Nashville area makes it challenging to compensate them adequately year-round. The grant from the Poetry Foundation also has allowed Southern Word to fund additional work during the summer months, leveraging the creative potential of the adult poetry team and providing enough income to make the work sustainable for them.