ORLANDO, Fla. – For many people, public speaking can be daunting, especially when you’re pouring your heart out into something like poetry.

For the City of Orlando’s Poet Laureate, Shawn Welcome, he’s using spoken word to inspire and lift up the Central Florida community.

He’s no stranger to performing in front of huge crowds. He’s made a career for himself working with businesses, and performing for everything from Orlando City soccer games to the opening of Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Pulse Memorials, and at local Black History and Martin Luther King Jr. events.

Besides that, the UCF graduate is also well-known in the community for starting Orlando’s longest-running open mic night which he founded back in 2006, Diverse Word.

He’s taken his own personal story and message into the community to show others how to use their own voices in positive ways. He’s worked with the Boys & Girls Club, Oak Ridge High School, and even at the Orange County Jail.

One of those community engagement events includes the “Voices of Freedom: An Evening of Spoken Word” showcase. It’s in its fourth year and new schools are added each year.

Next week, Welcome will be hosting a week-long spoken word poetry residency. He’ll be going to Edgewater, Ocoee, and Oak Ridge High Schools to expose Central Florida’s Black youth to spoken word poetry.

He works with students on their creative writing skills, critical thinking skills, and finding their voice. The overall goal is to help them build their confidence.

It all ends with the “Voices of Freedom” showcase, where select students will have a chance to show off their work. This year, the showcase will also feature K-Love The Poet from Chicago, a local step team out of New Image Youth Center in Parramore, a group of four singers performing a theatrical spoken word, and DJ T-VEL.

“Voices of Freedom” creates a space to celebrate Black History Month with an all-Black cast of poetry performers, while also exploring themes connected to the Black experience.

Welcome says it also presents an opportunity for the greatness within the local community to be seen and heard in a light that is many times, few and far between.

The “Voices of Freedom” showcase is on Feb. 7 inside the Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater at the Dr. Phillips Center. Click here for details.

Welcome will also be speaking Friday at the ZORA! Outdoor Festival of the Arts in Eatonville, which celebrates local literary icon, Zora Neale Hurston.

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