Rob Spillman Reports From the Poetry to the People Tour

Editor and writer Rob Spillman reports from the 1,800-mile Poetry to the People Tour, where he and others will be "giving out books to underserved communities between Brooklyn and New Orleans via House of SpeakEasy‘s mobile book truck." We can keep up with the tour thanks to Lit Hub. After Brooklyn, they headed to Philadelphia:

As part of the program, the Philly poet laureate Raquel Solas Rivera read with teens and three 70-year-olds, one of whom read a stunning poem about being able to say, for the first in public, that she was a gender nonconforming lesbian to the rousing support of the teen slam veterans. Then on Saturday, we headed over to Pittsburgh to pull up to the Carnegie Library, where poets Jenny Johnson and Rickey Laurentis read with award-winning local teens to a rapt audience. After a long haul to Columbus, Ohio, we pulled up in front of Two Dollar Radio’s headquarters, which is one part bookstore, one part café. Hanif Abdurraqib and Eloisa Amezcua each gave stunning readings.

At every stop, we pressed books into the hands of readers young and old alike. Many were surprised and delighted to hear there was no catch to the free book offer. This reaction was best exemplified by a Carnegie Library security guard who told us that she “uses poet’s lines to help express myself when I am trying to make myself understood to other people.” 

 Find out more at Lit Hub.