Melanie Faranello is the creator of Poetry on the Streets, a community engagement project using creative writing for social impact. POTS began by setting up a typewriter around the city—street corners, bus stops, parks— and engaging passersby to write a poem based on a word from a jar of emotions. From all different walks of life, people wrote about love, fear, loss, pain, hope, joy...Strangers shared emotions, stories, and moments of human connection.
Poetry on the Streets has expanded and evolved, engaging communities in creative expression, and developing collaborative projects to promote understanding and human connection by bringing people's words into public spaces.
Connecting everyday people to the poetry of everyday life
She was chosen as a Creative Community Fellow with National Arts Strategies for the 2019 New England Cohort, and named one of "14 community organizers who create equity in the face of inequity," by The Pollination Project awarding grants globally in support of leaders to promote social change. More about Poetry on the Streets here:
