Transient Typewrite Project Favorite 

Founded by Bobby Gordon and Nayeli Adorador Knudsen, The Melrose Poetry Bureau is a public intervention involving a whole lot of typewriters, a public space, and the chaos that ensues. Once a location is picked for an intervention, Bobby and Nayeli pack up their collection of old and new, sleek and saggy typewriters and transport them to that place. They set up tables, distribute the typewriters, and invite people to come write poetry.

Tee Melrose Poetry Bureau has so far done events with Bobby's UCLA undergrad poetry class, the Los Angeles Poetry Society, and performed as a duo at Write Club. The Transient Typewriter Project is one project of many, but as a public intervention it is their most captivating and instructive.

When people sit down at the typewriters, they begin to solicit passerbys and offer them free poems on the spot. Whether you are a newcomer to the Bureau and are receiving a poem, or feel comfortable writing on the first go, the space is an interaction hotbed, forcing people to have fun, intimate conversations about first appearances, feelings, and whatever else comes up in the poetry-writing process.