Youth Speaks, the nation’s leading spoken word performance, education and youth development organization, is proud to present the 11th annual Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival. Convening over 450 of the top teenage poets and spoken word artists from across the country, Brave New Voices 2008 is a one-of-a-kind festival. Held in a different city each year, Brave New Voices (BNV) gives participants the opportunity to explore a new cultural landscape and region while helping to build sustainable programming locally. For the first time ever, the seven-day festival will be held in Washington, D.C., just 3 months before the presidential election. BNV directly addresses the youth perspective on local and national issues, using spoken word as a tool for civic engagement, arts education, and literacy development – and reflecting the changing demographics of the United States.

Brave New Voices 2008 features teen poetry slam champions from cities, rural, and suburban areas, from the Deep South, Native American reservations, Alaska, college towns – even from parts of Europe and Africa – and will reach an audience of over 10,000 throughout the week. These young writers are a diverse, creative, intelligent group of trendsetters and community leaders (65% of whom qualify for the free lunch program at their home schools). They come to BNV each year to attend world-class workshops and performances by renowned poets, writers and musicians, and to participate in the Olympic-style Youth Poetry Slam, building a national community of young, intelligent, and courageous artists.