We might have tricked you into reading a poem. Sorry, not sorry     . 

Among the billboards for injury attorneys and car insurance across Detroit’s nearly 140 miles and into Dearborn 30 billboards featuring poems by metro Detroit students have been punctuating the city skyline this spring.

The ideas in the poetry of our kids are as varied as their personalities, from the heartwarming…

The only thing better than a /good poem is a good person.

Adam

to the humorous…

Detroit is like a capybara / chillin on the couch.

Evelyn

The billboards show the power of what poetry can do in a student’s education and development…

My poem is waiting for me in my heart. / It is making me breathe.

Reham

and how students imagine and reflect on their city…

Detroit is a basketball floating in space.

The 30 billboards represent the 30 years that InsideOut Literary Arts has been using poetry to inspire and equip young people to think critically, create bravely and share their voices with the world, and we wanted to create a stage as grand and important as their dreams. Or, rather, 30 unique stages that thousands of people will pass each day, on the off chance that they might look up and find a moment of delight by reading the words of our student poets.

I make the case for poetry in our work with youth at InsideOut all the time – its academic benefits as well as social-emotional ones – and there is data to prove it. But one thing we sometimes miss in funder meetings and grant applications is the fact that poetry can be a powerful tool to unlock joy. And as Audre Lorde showed us, joy is a radical act.

It’s also beautiful, and beauty has a ripple effect through our days, but in the opposite way than, say, someone cutting you off in traffic. 

The value of poetry can be hard to quantify because it doesn’t just have value for the person who writes it. In a world that seeks to commodify every iota of our attention and sell it to the highest bidder, reading a line of poetry gives your attention back to you. It connects you to the world around you, to others and back to yourself – a return on investment that can’t be beat.

And when that poetry is written by a young person, who might see the world in a fresh or different way making sense of things and sharing their bravery with all of us, well, that just hits even harder. 

In a time when the arts are being sidelined and defunded and technology is rapidly taking over tasks, programs like InsideOut remind us that cultivating imagination is the most human thing we can teach. If we believe education is meant to prepare young people for the real world, then we must ask: What kind of world are we preparing them for if we leave out the arts? 

We took some of the student writers on a bus tour of the 30 billboards with their families. Their reactions to seeing their words nestled between Detroit’s skyline or along freeways, were truly transformative, a powerful reminder of the impact their voices can have, especially in their own city. 

As student poet Rawyah writes:

I study the poem in the butterfly flying.

Rawyah

 That’s worth more than a moment of your attention.

Suma Karaman Rosen is the executive director of InsideOut Literary Arts, based in Detroit.

Billboard photos are courtesy of Lafayette American and Outfront Media