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Each of the poets will represent different parts of the country.
Robert Gao of University Laboratory High School in Champaign,
Illinois, will cover the Midwest. Marcus Burns of Vermont's St.
Johnsbury Academy will be based in the Northeast. Nadia Wright
of Murrah High School in Jackson, Mississippi, will be the poet
for the Southeast. Sofia Kamal of Rancho Solano Preparatory
School in Phoenix, Arizona, is the student poet for the
Southwest and the West's regional poet is Anya Melchinger of
Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu.
The National Student Poets Program (NSPP) is a partnership of
the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the
nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, which presents
the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, whose winners helped form
the pool of student poet finalists. The poets, each of whom will
receive $5,000, will spend the next year engaging with young
people through readings, workshops and other projects.
“We proudly recognize the Class of 2024 NSPP poets, whose
remarkable talent and artistry will shine throughout their year
of service, inspiring communities across the nation,” IMLS
Acting Director Cyndee Landrum said in a statement Thursday. “We
celebrate the collective energy of libraries, museums, schools
and communities, working together to create safe harbors where
young artists can thrive and flourish.”
In their own work, the students draw upon family background, the
natural world and the struggles to endure.
In Burns' “Yiping's Asian Market,” he remembers the hardship of
his grandmother and how “Her sacrifice brought us to America,
something to be grateful for,” while Gao's “Risky Hand” evokes
“our father, adorned with the waxen spit from colleagues,
candied in teething denim and Marlboros in orbit.”
Kamal, in the poem “Gas Station,” looks to the moon and finds it
“lobed with/desire left unanswered, its edge rusted over/by
centuries of eyes.” In Melchinger's “sometimes i wonder how we
sleep,” she shows is a house “where the ground breathes beneath
us black soil expanding/and contracting with the rain sending
cracks into the foundation rattling/our paper thin walls.”
Wright's “Where I'm going” is an ode to the country and her own
“sweet and sour” upbringing in the American South. She dreams of
“long hugs from strong women/whose never rest/whose souls never
quit” and savors “rich German chocolate cake/sweet, sweet
homemade lemonade/Oh, just the thought of it/makes my mouth
water.”
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