I had gone to the 2100 Lakeside Men's Shelter not knowing what it was. I was doing a one-off workshop with a poetry therapist, and it absolutely blew me away. One of the guys asked, "are you going to be back next week?," and we just looked at each other like wow, we have to do this.

Finding Voice, our poetry workshop, is run by my co-teacher RA Washington and I. We usually read a few poems to start, and then we save time for everyone to write and share at the end. We always make it very clear, like this isn't school.

Poetry's kind of a hard sell in a shelter. But that's why we always have candy or treats or something, because that's the selling point. But once people get up there and are open to it, then they come back. We've had several chapbooks published locally, and sometimes we'll do open mics or small events.

The guiding force and sort of the mantra for me of this class is a quote by Rita Dove: "Poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other." And that, for me, has always summed up what we've been doing at the shelter. It's sitting in a room, with a bunch of people talking about their thoughts and feelings and just, the human experience.