With education facing $5.3 billion in cuts in the next 13 months, Melissa Lemus declared, "We are going to have to rise up and create an Attica for LAUSD."

And the People's Poetry '09 audience got up from their seats to cheer.

The 2009 People's Poetry Night was a fundraiser for the Strategy Center's Taking Action after school program and its Summer Youth Organizing Academy. It showcased the poetry, dance and art of high school organizers in Los Angeles who are helping to build the movement against the "pre-prison" conditions in LAUSD schools.

Watch videos of the spoken word pieces and see the event photo album here.