Get Lit Rising: Words Ignite. Claim Your Poem. Claim Your Life.

Step into the world of spoken word with the Get Lit Players, a generation of young poets using rhythm, rhyme, storytelling, and performance to speak their truth and take on the issues that matter to them.

Step into the world of spoken word with the Get Lit Players, a generation of young poets using rhythm, rhyme, storytelling, and performance to speak their truth and take on the issues that matter to them.

Get Lit Rising brings the voices and experiences of these talented young writers to the page through original poetry and powerful spoken-word performances. Their poems explore identity, culture, family, friendship, love, belonging, social justice, and the challenges—and possibilities—of growing up. Together, the poems offer an honest, diverse, and deeply personal portrait of young people finding their voices and figuring out their place in the world.

But spoken word isn't just about what you say—it's about how you say it. Readers will experience poetry as a living art form, discovering how word choice, rhythm, repetition, imagery, voice, and performance can transform an idea or experience into something powerful.

Standards-aligned and designed for both classroom and independent reading, Get Lit Rising invites students to read closely, listen deeply, discuss big ideas, and experiment with their own writing. The Get Lit Players demonstrate that poetry doesn't have to stay on the page: it can be performed, shared, challenged, celebrated, and used to make your voice heard.

Whether you're already a poet or have never written a line of poetry before, Get Lit Rising is an invitation to pick up a pen, find your rhythm, and say something that matters.

Diane Luby Lane is the founder and executive director of Get Lit–Words Ignite, a Los Angeles-based arts education nonprofit that is transforming the landscape of teen literacy by empowering new generations in literature, self-expression, and performing arts. She is also the founder of the Get Lit Players, an award-winning classic teen poetry troupe that has collaborated with the United Nations, Dove, and Women in the World, and toured at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the White House, and more, igniting communities across the globe with art and social consciousness. Lane is also the founding producer of Get Lit's Classic Slam, the largest youth classic poetry festival in the world. Lane’s Lit Kit, a standards based, in-school curriculum, has been adopted by schools throughout the U.S. and internationally. She is the author of Words of Women (Samuel French) as well as the playwright and star of the critically acclaimed one-woman show Deep Sea Diving (also known as Born Feet First) which toured with iconic Chicano poet and author Jimmy Santiago Baca. Lane is a graduate of the Annenberg Foundation’s Alchemy + Leadership Program, a TedX speaker, a Southern California Leadership Network Fellow, a member of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Poet Laureate Committee, and a recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Service Award. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

The Get Lit Players are an award-winning classic teen poetry troupe selected from students in the Get Lit program. They perform annually for over 25,000 of their peers, igniting a passion for literacy and social consciousness in schools and communities across the globe. The GLPs have collaborated and performed with the United Nations, the White House, the Kennedy Center, and more. Join the Literary Riot at getlit.org.