ASU+GSV 2026 Summit | Monday, April 13, 2026, 2:50 pm-3:00 pm | The Forum
Speakers
- Lemon Andersen
Key Takeaways
- Spoken word poet Lemon Andersen delivers a powerful civic performance poem followed by a pitch for "We the Poets," a proposed TV series where "def poetry jam meets the United States Constitution." The 27-episode series (one per amendment) would feature three to five poets per episode -- including young emerging poets being incubated alongside established and celebrity poets like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Nas, and Jelly Roll -- performing on major stages across four seasons.
- Andersen, who has spent 30 years as a working artist in classrooms and 25 years as Spike Lee's creative director, argues that poetry is uniquely positioned to make civics visceral and accessible to young people, noting that only 9% of adults can name their first five amendments.
- The series would be distributed on Google's platform rather than traditional networks to avoid gatekeeping the poets' truth-telling.
Notable Quotes
"We, the poets, are the only ones who can tell the truth about who we are."
— Lemon Andersen
"Only the artists know how to breathe life into injustice, while rocking Supreme Courts on their sleeves, citizenship on their kicks."
— Lemon Andersen
"Poetry is really the only art that tells the truth about who we are. And that's a quote from James Baldwin."
— Lemon Andersen
"The one thing about poetry is that it's not even nonpartisan, it's postpartisan."
— Lemon Andersen
Full Transcript
I want you to imagine a stage draped in the gospel of our democracy. No curtains, no hair and makeup, no wardrobe, just truth, set on a raked proscenium, overlooking an audience ushered in from all corners of the globe to witness a reckoning of what we hold evident, and most of all, by far, that we, the poets, are the only ones who can tell the truth about who we are. Now I want you to imagine that stage in a time where freedom comes in all colors and in rhymes, where orators, young and bold, fly in from the wings, bobbing and weaving, hustling and heaving their courageous words off the pages of our discontent. Fearlessly flowing, glowing verses from the living rooms of their pulpit churches, preaching what preachers can't preach, mending amendments into porgy and best scores, redacted laws into black thought metaphors, defending their rights to write freedom songs without magic tricks, without any applause, just blood and lung and breath.
Because only the artists know how to breathe life into injustice, while rocking Supreme Courts on their sleeves, citizenship on their kicks, only the scribes know how to scuff the lyrics off of long-winded filibusters and bad politics, jump off the pallets with the malice of their pens, rip the bone marrow from these complex doctrines with their undeniable swag and their anamorphic lens. Only the artists know how to haunt the ghosts between these words so their verbs vibrate and become flesh. With papier-mâché and styrofoam protests, paintbrushes and puppeteers, an army of scoped a legion of drummers, a banner held by miles of volunteers, all brushing wheat, pasted patriotic petitions across this nation, without being bought out by corporate auctioneers or congressional compensation. You see, only the musicians can turn over taxation into drumming demonstrations, woman's suffrage into house music in the shy, because Black Betty might have been a jam, but she was also a descendant of slaves, with justice in her eyes, rhythm in her feet, a ballad in her ballot, an 808 in a heartbeat, a reform for a chorus, a sovereign thought and a master plan to railroad hymns and blues with red, white, and due process and dance it across the land.
That's right, we, the poets, the artists, the music shakers, the digital new narrators, the etch-a-sketcher, the beat makers, we, the poets, that's who we are. The Latin girl, freestyle and civic raps on cue, the white kid in the Black class remixing Dixie on his kazoo, the indigenous child tracing declarations of his people in the sky, with the Wacom board in his hand and in his chest an Apache war cry, because the artists are the only ones who can bring this country, this nation, out of the dark, with a simple paintbrush and a pen and a glowing need to speak and sing of a moral perfect union, from the freedoms of their heart. Thank you. Now, thank you for letting us get out of here, great.
My name is Lemon Anderson, and I have been doing this for a very long time. And what's been great about being a poet full time is it puts me in the classrooms. And for many, many years, I found myself on stage at night and in classrooms in the morning. And I really had to meet the integrity of that show the night before with young people all over the world, not just in America, not just in South Africa, but everywhere from Australia to Norway, from Scotland to Germany.
And poetry is really the only art that tells the truth about who we are. And that's a quote from James Baldwin. And what I learned over the last 30 years was how effective it is to be a working artist in the classroom, right? So I've been with Spike Lee as a creative director for 25 years, and I noticed the power of that in the room.
What it's like to be someone who is involved in the sneakers they wear, in the commercials they see, and how that's effective in their room. And what I wanted to do out of being creative director is how do I get back to the power of poetry? And what does the power of poetry mean when it comes to any narrative? You become a better screenwriter as a poet, you become a better playwright as a poet, you become a better novelist as a poet, but most importantly, you become a better leader.
So with We the Poets, the idea is imagine a TV series where death poetry jam meets the United States Constitution, 27 episodes, 27 amendments, each episode, three to five poets. Imagine that. Three out of the five poets are young people, learning, shaping, being incubated to become the next best writers of this country. The fourth is an established poet, and the fifth, we're going to bring in a celebrity poet.
And the reason why I think this is so effective, because I'm a fan of poetry myself. I love researching and finding out who the next poets are. And how do we use these poets to translate civics, right? The reality is we don't really learn civics in classrooms the way we used to.
Everyone keeps talking about schoolhouse rock, everyone. Everyone wants to make the next schoolhouse rock. Well, why don't we let the poets do that? Why don't we let the poets write their jingles and speak to civics the way no one else can, right?
So diverse. That's the one thing about poetry is that it's not even nonpartisan, it's postpartisan. You don't know who they are, right? And so giving them the shot, because as you can see on the screen, only 9% of adults can name their first five amendments, and they're probably all in this room, right?
And how effective is that going to be when we have to teach our young people to vote? So we, the poets, it'll be spoken in two acts, 27 amendments again, 27 episodes, the best poets in the country performing 15, eight, you know, micro-sized learnings. These young people don't have the attention span. I know, I work with young people every day.
It's single poems, group poems, and we're going to perform it in the best stages, four seasons, 27 amendments. None of them will be in order. So it's all unexpected. Each episode, you don't know what you're going to get.
You don't know who's in it. Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of our guests, right? We got Nas on deck. We got this great artist named Jelly Roll and my favorite celebrity artist, Oscar the Grouch, who will be on stage with us.
And this is the market for us. Not that I'm selling this show at all, but I think people overlook poetry and the power it has on social media. If you look up poetry, we all look to poetry for love, right? That poem that tells us about what's happening in my life, that heartbreak we've gone through, right?
We all look to that. We look to the poets when it comes to civics, to our constitutional rights and our institutional understandings. And I say that because we're filled with institutions around the world who cover civics, right? And so how do we break that through the power of poetry?
So this is our lens. Poetry, pure content, we'll work with the best social media staging. This is a Google platform. That's right.
We don't want to sell this to any network, any streaming platforms. We don't want to have to go through them. I've sold a ton of TV shows. We are not getting in the way of our poets speaking the truth.
And this is meant for a high school level education. The reason why it's high school is because I think there's a great reach towards community colleges as well as middle schools, right? There's an opportunity here. So please, if you want to join us and support us and get to know a little bit more about what we're doing, We the Poets, this is a QR code for you to join us there.
And lastly, I thank you for your time here.
This transcript was put together by our friend Philippos Savvides from Arizona State University. The original transcript and additional summit resources are available on GitHub. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.