Spoken Word Artist, Educator, Activist, and Co-Founder of Phonetic Spit
A poet, writer, teaching artist, and community activist, Tomas is a teaching-artist dedicated to advancing the arts of spoken word and Hip Hop as a platform for youth development and civic engagement. Co-Founder of Phoenix’s premiere youth spoken word ensemble, Phonetic Spit, Tomas uses hip-hop pedagogy to inspire youth to boldly express themselves through poetry, dance, and theater. His work and teaching style is rooted in his childhood experiences of poverty and single parent household, political issues, identity, and love. Tomas has over 10 years experience in youth development and currently works across the Phoenix valley creating safe spaces for youth to express themselves through spoken word.
About Phonetic Spit
Phonetic Spit, co-founded by Tomas Stanton and Myrlin Hepworth, is the premiere youth poetry ensemble in Phoenix, Arizona. A unique mixture of hip hop theatre and poetry, Phonetic Spit promotes leadership, conscious community engagement, and aesthetic excellence.
Mission: Phonetic Spit creates safe spaces to empower young people to establish their voice and use it to become driven and contributing citizens of the world.
Spit: Slang meaning “to bust a rhyme” or “orally recite a poem of rap verse”, here also used to denote the action of mastering one’s own language for the purpose of healing and enlightenment.
Vision: To use spoken word poetry in an effort to shift the perception of youth by combating illiteracy and silence.