Following the original broadcast of this show in May, Alexandra Huynh was selected as the youth poet laureate! Congratulations, Alexandra!
Most of us are familiar with the honorable title of U.S. Poet Laureate.
Well, young people write poetry, too — and the kids are more than alright.
Since 2017, the National Youth Poet Laureate program has named an annual poet laureate who’s under the age of 20.
You may know its very first honoree: Amanda Gorman. She performed her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Joe Biden in January.
The program is set to name its new National Youth Poet Laureate later this month. So we’re getting to know three of this year’s finalists: Serena Yang, Alora Young, and Alexandra Huynh.
What role does poetry play in their lives — and their community?
We asked each poet to perform an original poem on the air. Here they are:
RAGE (WOMAN) by Serena Yang
In the aftermath,
I show you the pictures.
I say, woman. Mother. Aunt. Auntie.
Woman. Jiejie, meimei, ayi, here
are so many women. Here is my grandma,
whose rage was a bird with the wind
beneath her wings. The Chinese word
for “anger” also means “air.”
When she ran away from home,
waigong would go out on the streets
calling her name, like bringing a dog
to heel. Their three young daughters
following. Some of my mother’s
earliest memories are of searching
the night for her mother,
who wasn’t missing at all,
just breathing. Her rage
like a light that makes all
who love her move.
I don’t want to talk
about who hates us,
or why we must be afraid.
I want to know that you
are alive, and precious.
I don’t need to know your name
to call you auntie. Sister.
I want to ask you:
Who do you love?
Who is your daughter?
What do your women
dream about?
Inheritance by Alexandra Huynh
Even as I untether myself
from this built world,
I know I exist.
The battles continue
where my feet stand;
I need no pictures to prove it.
The celebrations live
inside my bloodline;
I need no ribbon to prove it.
I am already a triumph.
Every day I breathe.
And years from now,
when I become ancestor
I will tell them all about
the courage of distance;
how we learned to
hold space instead of hands.
I will them about
the color of courage;
how loss echoed through
an entire generation
and the children became teachers;
learned love is not defined by age
I will tell them of this land
we ripped from a people
we can never repay,
but we will try & try
I will tell them about the way
a footstep can be felt
on the other side of the planet
So mind your sole.
Move only in truth.
You have inherited this silence;
now make it sing
Requiem: Laying to rest the souls of the dead things like a name, like a dream, like a sin, like a parent by Alora Young
For every child who lost a loved one to covid-19
some memories catch on the back of the throat
just can’t be made to rest
In morning garb, tungsten&charred delirium
etch themselves in occipital lobes
Leaves an ache like solemn a vow or preachers robes
Love and pain are the same, a simple axiom
as god sewed loss in the veins of Job
I dare you to call it a requiem
funerals make life long songs one note
daydream that sums of symphonies live in the echos left
burn in the furnace of the mind with no lifeboat
fester under, wonder why loss feels more like theft
there aren’t words to explain the dept of death
pamphlets passed out filled with false compendiums
silent churches sing no verses of bereft
I dare you to call it a requiem
we never stop wondering why this is all God wrote
how dare God leave me with the aching in my chest
after every prayer I crafted all that we devote
he still took you from us sternly deaf to each protest
hoping if I preach enough then maybe I can rest
that I won’t see their face in my reflection
sing softly words to songs that they professed
I dare you to call it a requiem
people tell me mourning is like any other quest
I search everywhere except where they buried them
I wrote a letter that I never sent stamped or addressed
And I dare you to call it a requiem
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