Truly CA Shorts is KQED’s monthly podcast of short documentary films by California filmmakers. Serious to absurd, the truth is always stranger than fiction!

Poetry Inside Out captures the struggle of bilingual kids who are crossing boundaries of culture and language within Bay Area public schools. The documentary follows several ethnically diverse students in San Francisco and Oakland over a year-long period. Coming from families where English may be the second or even third language, Carmen, Ke’Shae, Gentail, Caroline, Ricardo, and their friends create imaginative worlds of dragons, space aliens, love, and death in a unique writing program based on literary translation. The students’ spirited and insightful poems transcend their imperfect urban world.