“It’s about love, but it’s also about the absence of love, the discovery of love, the searching for love inside yourself and in others,” Pham says of the book. As part of the role, Pham will publish a poetry collection, LOVELIKE, in June. This year Pham is Seattle’s Youth Poet Laureate, a title given her in June 2022 by the year-long Youth Poetry Fellowship program at Seattle Arts & Lectures. Now poetry has turned into more than a hobby. “But poetry allowed me to write in a very personal way that really revealed a lot of truths for me.” “In other forms of writing, we’re asked to write to a very specific rubric, or write a certain way, and never in a personal way,” the 20-year-old Pham says. That was when Pham learned how liberating poetry can be. In sixth grade, she met local poet and author Vicky Edmonds through Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools program. Sah Pham’s love affair with poetry began at Cascade K-8 Community School in Shoreline, where she was already scribbling poems at age 7 and 8. In honor of the “official” poetry month, we’re checking in with members of the art form’s vanguard: three emerging poets already making a splash on the bustling scene. “Removed from all context, their poems are incredible and stand on their own.” “Youth poetry is some of the best stuff that happens in Seattle,” True said. She added that these poems are good, regardless of the writers’ ages. And they’re gonna make us listen.”Īrianne True, who mentors young poets at SAL with LaPointe and teaches young poets at Hugo House, agrees. “These young poets are fierce and ready for a fight, they’re tackling themes and addressing issues fearlessly, in a way that feels really groundbreaking, and why wouldn’t they be? They know they have something to say and their voices are so crucial right now. “There is a strength and a confidence there because there has to be,” she continued. “I’ve seen students go from quiet and shy, to loud and massive on the stage, claiming space they deserve,” LaPointe wrote in an email. Young poets are writing and performing all over town, and according to Sasha LaPointe, a poet and mentor for SAL’s Youth Poetry Fellowship, the form is helping youth find and hone their voice. The city boasts a wealth of youth poetry programming too.Įach year since 2015, Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Youth Poetry Fellowship has awarded the Youth Poet Laureate title to one young poet from a workshop cohort and helps them publish a poetry collection through Poetry Northwest, a journal in publication since 1959.Īt longstanding literary center Hugo House, the Young Writers Cohort has a division specifically for poets, in which a mentor guides students through a year-long program focused on poetry.Īnd spoken-word organization YouthSpeaks Seattle, founded in 2003, hosts open-mic nights, poetry slams and weekly writing circles at the University of Washington’s Othello Commons and at Black arts center Wa Na Wari.
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