Our Work – Create

Create

We produce and support original cultural work including short films, poetry, immersive gatherings, and participatory media that advances narratives of liberation and repair.

Working with our members and other artists, filmmakers, historians, comedians, and athletes, we shift dominant narratives, spark imagination, and build cultural power that moves hearts, minds, and policy.

Italy Ja’Rae Lee

Poets for Liberation Fellow

Italy Ja’Rae Lee is a second-year student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts studying at the Atlantic Acting School. A multi-talented artist, Italy won the New Jersey state championship of Poetry Out Loud in 2022, which inspired her to write and perform spoken word poetry across New York. She has since performed at venues including the Apollo Victoria Theatre, Count Basie Theatre, S.O.B’s, Dodge Poetry Festival, and the Skirball Center, where she won the audience choice award at Ultra Violet Live. She claimed the title of Teen Slam Champ of NYC after winning Parlee Endeavor’s annual “Battle of the Boroughs” competition. Inspired by the late Nikki Giovanni, Italy uses her work to advocate for arts education, dismantle toxic societal narratives, and bridge the gaps between communities.

Somah Toya Haaland

Poets for Liberation Fellow

Somah Toya Haaland is a queer and neurodivergent artist from the Pueblo of Laguna. They earned their BA in Theatre from the University of New Mexico in 2017, where they lovingly pursued their passion for movement and storytelling. They have been living as a guest on Munsee Lenape / Canarsie lands (Brooklyn, NY) since 2019. Their words have been featured in Teen Vogue, NBC News, the New Yorker, and American Theatre Magazine, and they have published two poems in the collections Our Red Book and My Life: Growing Up Native in America. In 2021, they consulted and voiced the narration for the documentary film Our Story: the Indigenous-Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco. Somah serves on the Board of Directors for Pueblo Action Alliance.

Delaney Jocelyn

Poets for Liberation Fellow

Delaney Jocelyn is a slam poet, playwright, and teaching artist whose work explores the intersections of mental health, identity, social justice, and spirituality. At New York University she designed her own major — Educational Poetic Therapy — blending poetry with therapeutic practices to foster healing and community building. She wrote Sterile, a one-woman play exploring identity and trauma, produced in collaboration with HI-ARTS and Urban Word. As a teaching artist with Manifesto Inc., she supports foster children and Bronx youth in processing their experiences through poetry. Delaney has performed at events including Woman of the World Poetry Slam and Brave New Voices, and at venues including the Nuyorican Poets Café and Harlem Bomb Shelter.

Create

Current Projects

Reclamation Day

This Land Is

Reclamation Day

Executive Produced Content

First America series

Narration series

Black and Indigenous solidarity

Reparations

Solidarity Futures Talent Network

How Black and Indigenous Women Have Practiced Reclamation

Poet Fellows Performances

Indigenous Led collaboration

Poets for Liberation Fellowship

Italy Ja’Rae Lee

Somah Toya Haaland

Delaney Jocelyn

Collect

Collaborate

Consult