The tour has naturally grown out
of both organizations’ work to pro-
duce creative events that bring people
together through stories or books.
In addition to selling and donating
books from the windows of its book-
mobile, House of SpeakEasy hosts a
series of literary cabarets in New York
City that feature prominent writers
and thinkers reading and riffing on a
given theme. The organization also
subsidizes tickets for teachers and
students to attend literary events for
free and sends working writers into
classrooms and community centers
throughout the city. Narrative 4,
which has chapters in twelve coun-
tries on four continents, conducts
story exchanges—events in which
participants pair off to swap their
stories and then retell those stories to
the larger group—among people with
different perspectives who wouldn’t
otherwise meet, such as teens from
public and private high schools or
refugees and public opponents of
refugee resettlement.
The organizers want the tour to
bring this work to communities they
have not reached before. “The mis-
sion of Narrative 4 is to harness the
power of the story exchange to equip
and embolden young adults to improve
their lives, their communities, and the
world,” Spillman says. “We are all about
making connections through story, and
the Poetry to the People Tour allows
us to share stories and poems in per-
son and make in-person connections
across age, race, class, and geographic
differences.” –MAGGIE MILLNERpoets on the rise today—Morgan
Parker, Danez Smith, Tommy Pico,
Solmaz Sharif, Natalie Diaz, Kaveh
Akbar, Ross Gay, Rickey Laurentiis—
are also reflective of the real diversity
of our country. Their poetry connects
with teens in an immediate, visceral
manner.” The tour’s schedule of events
reflects that belief: On June 14 the
Free Library of Philadelphia will host
a story exchange, a workshop, and a
reading featuring local teens along-
side Philadelphia poet laureate Raquel
Salas Rivera and writer and educator
Rayna Guy. And on June 15 poets
Jenny Johnson and Rickey Laurentiis
will perform at the Carnegie Mellon
Library in Pittsburgh.
MAGGIE MILLNER is
a poet and teacher from
rural upstate New York.
Her poems have appeared
or are forthcoming in the
New Yorker, Ploughshares,
Gulf Coast, and ZYZZYVA.
Previously she was the Diana
& Simon Raab Editorial
Fellow at Poets & Writers
Magazine.RACHAEL HANEL is the
author of We’ll Be the Last
Ones to Let You Down: Memoir
of a Gravedigger’s Daughter
(University of Minnesota
Press, 2013).GILA LYONS has written
about feminism, mental
health, and social justice for,
among other publications,
the New York Times, Salon,
Vox, Cosmopolitan, Good, and
O, the Oprah Magazine. Find
her on Twitter, @gilalyons, or
on her website, gilalyons
.com.JONATHAN VATNER is
a fiction writer in Yonkers,
New York. His novel,
Carnegie Hill, is forthcoming
from Thomas Dunne Books
in August.DANA ISOKAWA is the
senior editor of Poets &
Writers Magazine.CONTRIBUTORS13 POETS & WRITERS