For 18 year old Raul “Junior” Herrera, writing poetry comes as naturally as breathing. He can’t seem to explain it any other way. He writes about anything from girls to personal issues to something as trivial as cupcakes because he doesn’t want to limit himself to a particular genre, style or audience. 

Eventually Junior got in touch with a non-profit organization called Get Lit and his talent went from writings on paper, to inspirations on stage. Get Lit’s mission is to bring literacy to young students through poetry and performance. Founder Diane Lane wants to make poets like Shakespeare and Lord Byron more relatable to young kids, and let the old poets usher in the new poets like Junior. It might seem like a hard task to get high school students interested in the likes of T.S Eliot or John Keats, but Lane is doing it school by school, student by student in hopes of raising the standard for literacy. 

Reach Books Editor Judy here or follow her on Twitter