In partnership with Common Area Maintenance, Dujie Tahat will bring poems into city hall and the everyday machinery of policymaking. Tahat will host “Salonshops,” one-on-one and small group gatherings with civic and elected leaders, citizen boards and commissions, everyday community members, and poets. In these Salonshops, participants will read poems and have conversations about policy and civic life. Through the transformative act of reading poems together, Tahat will create opportunities to confront truths, discomfort, and offer language to reconcile experiences, bringing civic leaders closer to a shared understanding as the pretext to critical policy discussions.