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¡RIOT! A 2022 CALIFORNIA FOSTER YOUTH POETRY ANTHOLOGY

THIS IS OURS...

Promotional flyers featuring the visual artwork of Elizabeth Villa (left) and Joel Swazo (right) - Click on Images to Enlarge -

¡RIOT!: A 2022 California Foster Youth Poetry Anthology is the first community poetry book edited by Journey House's Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) program. In this project, you will find the work of 31 writers and 2 visual artists, all of whom have experienced the foster care system and all based in California. Each artist expresses themselves through lines that capture and hold attention to their struggles, but more importantly, how they have shaped and pushed themselves forward.

Below you'll find samples of the work bound into our 83 page book and a peek into the Why? that led to the creation of this project. Journey House's Visual and Performing Arts Program wants to extend a sincere Thank You to the writers and artists that brought this project to life--Thank you all, this is ours!

The inside cover pages of ¡RIOT! are draped in the visual artwork of Elizabeth Villa--a very talented collage artist from Southern California (left & right). ¡RIOT!: A 2022 California Foster Youth Poetry Anthology's Table of Contents (center).

¡RIOT! was built on top of Journey House's theoretical frameworks, which emphasize grassroots community-led solution building. All creative labor for ¡RIOT!, starting from the writing and visual art to the editing and coordinating---all creative labor---was conducted by community members that have experienced the child welfare system. ¡RIOT!: A 2022 California Foster Youth Poetry Anthology not only showcases the talent of our community, but also reaffirms the ability of our community members.

Our book has been curated along three chapters: (1) Rage, (2) Survival Tactics, and (3) The Foster Youth Power Movement. These three themes were selected to encourage our community members to speak from the rejection of others modes and limits--from right here, we write to resist.

¡RIOT!: A 2022 California Foster Youth Poetry Anthology's cover art features the graphic design talent of Joel Swazo (image 1). Chapter illustrations were produced in-house from VAPA's graphic design studio.

Intention is critical to the development of creative projects at VAPA, which demands an emphasis on the process, or art practice, of our community members. In ¡RIOT!, you can see our forms of thinking in the deliberate micro decisions--some of which will never be present to the reader, such as: our slowed down on the ground one-on-one recruitment efforts, uplifting the poetry of first time writers, choosing a smaller sized book format of 8.5" x 5.5" to resemble the principles of our constantly moving guerilla theoretical framework, or the debates leading to a final curation of writing that speaks to the defiance of our community's spirit.

¡RIOT! is meant to be an object that rests in our community archive, a bounded collection of writing where our people see themselves reflected. With confidence and happiness we can truly say: This is ours.

Our team shipping out ¡RIOT! to our contributing artists (top left). ¡RIOT!: A 2022 California Foster Youth Poetry Anthology in the flesh (bottom)

Physical copies of ¡RIOT! have only been given to our participating artists. Our goal is to locate community partners and grants that can assist us in printing additional copies for future distribution. VAPA's goal for ¡RIOT! is to eliminate the financial barriers that prevent our community members from accessing our peoples art work. If you know of any opportunities, or have community connections, that can assist us in printing more copies, please message our Visual and Performing Arts Director, Michael Papias at: michael@journeyhouseyouth.org

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