Shandela Contreras: Young poet uplifts community with spoken word

What matters most in poetry is whether it spurs the reader to feel something. 

That’s what Shandela Contreras, a sophomore majoring in English with an emphasis on creative writing, learned from Los Angeles Poet Laureate and USC writer-in-residence Robin Lewis. Even if the reader can’t understand every piece of your work, as long as they feel something, your work has done its job, Lewis told her. 

This year, Contreras will take the stage at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books as a published poet, ready to inspire emotions in her audience.

Publishing poetry books was a childhood dream of Contreras’, and she’s found heroes in poets Maya Angelou, Natasha Trethewey and Amanda Gorman. Poetry was the vehicle through which she expressed her identity, culture and thoughts, but she didn’t know how or where to share her work until she learned about the independent publication route.

“The independent publishing world has really widened in scope [of what’s possible],” Contreras said. 

She discovered resources to develop her craft through Get Lit, a non-profit organization focused on encouraging spoken word performances, technological literacy and community. Major themes of love, grief and education became the pinnacle points of her collection.

The Get Lit program printed a personal copy at the end of the program, but, wanting to share her work with more people, Contreras independently published her chapbook, “Mellow Ballads, that move your bones,” in May 2021. The project expanded her dreams as a writer as she began to share the joy of poetry with others.   

Priscilla Calderon, a sophomore majoring in English with an emphasis on creative writing and psychology, said she remembers the first time she saw Contreras perform her poetry at their high school, the James A. Foshay Learning Center. 

“People were definitely moved by the performance,” Calderon said. “We immediately were just drawn to listen to what she had to share especially since that was her first time sharing with our peers.”

Contreras has since read spoken word performances as a L.A. Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. The program, of which she was a finalist in 2022, provides her opportunities to speak with audiences around the city to propel civic engagement and inspire youth to use their voices. 

“Every single performance is special to me,” Contreras said. “I don’t care how small or big the venue is or how many people are there, but just any opportunity to reach across just a single person is always going to mean the most.” 

Contreras fondly remembers the time the chief service officer of California, Josh Fryday, invited her to read at the statewide launch of the College Corps Fellows program in Sacramento. She wrote the poem, “Ode to Education,” to celebrate the program’s support of low-income students in attaining access to higher education. This was a subject dear to her because it came from personal experience, and she expressed gratitude to her parents for their sacrifices. 

“It was just really exciting that I got to share that moment with my mom because when I wrote [‘Ode to Eeducation,’] it was talking about all the people who sacrificed themselves for people like us, meaning low-income students,” Contreras said. “That’s what that poem was really about: the sacrifices that they make and the sacrifices that we made for ourselves to excel at the highest level possible.” 

Acknowledging the resilience of family and neighbors, Contreras teaches a creative writing class at the Ahmanson Senior Center, just a few blocks away from USC’s University Park Campus. When she was promoted from intern to employee at the Angeleno Court to teach her proposed creative writing class, her greatest challenge was building trust with her students, all of whom are several decades older than her. 

“It took a lot for them to even trust me as a writer, a teacher because I was only 17 years old,” Contreras said. “But they built trust [with] me and I trusted that they would be vulnerable with their stories.” 

She had five students, and their skills varied between first-time poetry writers and Ph.D. students. Contreras began with prompts and response poetry to develop her students from rhyming poems to unique pieces of work. By getting to know her students, Contreras said she began believing more in what her work can do for her community. 

“I find great inspiration from them … The voices of the past shape the voices of the future,” she said. “Just hearing their lived experiences and knowing that I’m a product of their experiences and what they faced is how I know that my poetry can exist with their voices and their stories.” 

Ivonne Rodriguez, the mother of one of Contreras’ peers from the USC Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative, said Contreras has “found a way to step into her power” and continues to grow as a scholar and poet. 

NAI’s 3-Part Art program partners with Vision and Voices and, as a project specialist, Rodriguez has witnessed the impact that meeting other first-generation artists and business owners has had on Contreras’ passion for poetry and using it to create safe and creative spaces for the residents of her home community in South Central L.A. 

“Shandela has taken this gift that she has and … She’s sharing it,” Rodriguez said. “She is still in the community, reinforcing the power of word.”

Last January, Contreras edited and published the anthology, “Bells Toll Ad Infinitum,” highlighting the stories of Black, Indigenous and women of color from the Ahmanson Senior Citizen Center. Next, her class is working on a collection of memoirs. Contreras believes that there is no age limit at which a person should stop telling stories. 

“Once you’re an author, you’re always going to be an author,” Contreras said. “I just want them to know that they can always produce something.” 

Attending the Festival of Books as a published author is a full circle moment for Contreras, who’s a longtime Festival attendee. She said she remembers the years she spent visiting the Festival with her mom and dreamt of sharing her stories with others. This year, that dream became real. 

“Just knowing that I get to step up on that stage and be elevated and celebrated by my mom and other people at USC and all my friends and family at the L.A. Times Festival of Books,” Contreras said, “I’m just so excited to do it. I’m really glad that I got this blessing and this opportunity to do so.”