MEET THE POETS
TYRIS WINTER
Tyris Winter (they/he) is a desert raised but L.A. based artist who blurs the lines between poetry, fashion and dancing. Even in the world wind of life, Winter still finds time to nurture their plants and sew disco fantasy outfits to prance around in.
Find Tyris on the internet @winterissues on all platforms. Posting about their children/pets/stuffed animals named Pinellope and Piggie Smalls.
CASSADY LOPEZ
Cassady López (she/her) is a poet, writer, film enthusiast, fashion designer, artist, sister and friend. She has performed and competed from the final’s stage at the Los Angeles Get Lit Classic Slam to the Brave New Voices Slam stages as well as various venues and classrooms throughout Southern California. From an early age, she has written about, and explored personal subjects such as family, latinidad, homelessness and disability.
She was born and raised in the California desert and continues to write and create within her community through different forms of expression and art.
VIRGINIA VILLALTA
Virginia Villalta (she/her) is a Salvadoran-Mexican poet from Mid-City, Los Angeles. She was the captain of her high school poetry team at Venice High School. To Virginia, poetry was a language she learned that helped her understand the hardships throughout her life. Through this linguistic liberation, she oftentimes finds herself writing poetry about socio-economic class and poverty, queer identity, imposter syndrome, and her Latin identity and experience. Virginia has been a featured speaker at The 2020 Los Angeles Women’s March, competed in the Brave New Voices international youth poetry slam, and won the Highest Scoring Poet and People’s Choice Awards in the 2020 Get Lit Los Angeles Slam poetry competition. Now Virginia spends most of her time focusing on her studies at the University of California Irvine, however every now and then she squeezes time to write poems, which is one of her favorite things to do.
AMARI TURNER
Amari Turner (she/her) is a poet from Compton, California. After discovering the power of poetry at a young age, she began competing in Slam Poetry Competitions, using them as a medium to reveal the world from her eyes. As a Get Lit player, she traveled around Los Angeles County sharing her voice, and encouraging others to use theirs.
Amari is now pursuing her love for writing at Tufts University where she is currently studying Literary Discourse Studies.
JASON ALVAREZ
Jason Alvarez (he/him) is a San Fernando native who fell in love with poetry while attending Cleveland High School. At night you will find him playing video games or writing and drawing in his handy dandy notebook. He aspires to be an architect, and hopefully a pretty good trumpet player too.
Jason is currently attending online school, and working in general construction so he can one day design, and help build a dream home for his parents back in Mexico.