Poetic Element: Poetic Zine (pronounced zeen)

How to play: Create your own Zine! Poetic Zines are small, self published, DIY booklets that can blend poetry, illustration, and personal story. Each page can be a stanza or comic panel, use repetition, jokes, rhymes, etc., to explore identity, community, and social issues. A poetic comic book zine merges verse with comic-style visuals, speech bubbles, bold text, and illustrated characters to tell layered community stories through both words and images. C

Description: SPROUT is an early model of youth using comic, zine, & poetry to document community truths and imagine more just and joyful futures. Rooted in grassroots culture and creative resistance and designed to amplify voices often left out of mainstream spaces, KL youth participants designed, SPROUT, a Poetic Comic book that explored the realities of their changing community.  The large-scale illustrations from the original comic poetry book coupled with various prompts are here to encourage your creativity.  The oversized character cutouts invite you to play, pretend and take pics.  The large dry erase speech bubbles, prompts & portrait mirrors invite you to check in with yourself and respond to the prompts around gentrification.  Grab a blank zine book, a writing pencil, and a couple colored pencils. Then write, draw, color your own mini poetic comic book zine.  Don't forget to use the prompts centered on displacement, and neighborhood resilience. Check out the Kuumba Lynx poetic comic book too!