"A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs, and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk"
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Bonet’s sentence reads like the anti-celebrity statement: no grand manifesto, no halo-polishing, just a report from the ground. The first move is collective. “A group of us” drains the ego out of the origin story, positioning community work as something built with others, not bestowed by a star. That matters in the context of late-80s/90s fame culture around her: she was often treated as an image to be debated, not a person with agency. Here, agency shows up as logistics.
The second move is pragmatic humility. “We’ve tried different programs” admits experimentation and failure without dramatizing it. Then comes a blunt metric of success: “three have worked really well.” It’s community organizing language, not publicity language. The subtext is a quiet rebuke to performative charity that values visibility over outcomes. If something doesn’t work, you change it. If it does, you keep showing up.
The specifics do the rest. A “poetry group” signals an investment in voice, not just services - art as infrastructure, expression as a form of survival. Then the sentence narrows from Santa Monica’s affluent sheen to “Venice High” and “girls at risk,” a reminder that geographic proximity doesn’t equal shared security. “Once a week” is the key phrase: consistency over rescue fantasy. The intent isn’t to be inspirational; it’s to normalize care as routine, local, and unfinished work.
The second move is pragmatic humility. “We’ve tried different programs” admits experimentation and failure without dramatizing it. Then comes a blunt metric of success: “three have worked really well.” It’s community organizing language, not publicity language. The subtext is a quiet rebuke to performative charity that values visibility over outcomes. If something doesn’t work, you change it. If it does, you keep showing up.
The specifics do the rest. A “poetry group” signals an investment in voice, not just services - art as infrastructure, expression as a form of survival. Then the sentence narrows from Santa Monica’s affluent sheen to “Venice High” and “girls at risk,” a reminder that geographic proximity doesn’t equal shared security. “Once a week” is the key phrase: consistency over rescue fantasy. The intent isn’t to be inspirational; it’s to normalize care as routine, local, and unfinished work.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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