Skip to main content

A Powerful Gift



Congratulations to Oakland Mills High School student Mai-Anh Nguyen who was named Howard County’s first-ever Youth Poet Laureate yesterday at an event held at Busboys and Poets. This appointment will provide Nguyen with the opportunity to act “as an ambassador for literacy, arts and youth expression in Howard County” and comes with a modest stipend.

Nguyen is a student at Oakland Mills High School, active in the Youth Climate Institute, National Art Honors Society, National Spanish Honor Society, tennis and theater. Nguyen won the Jack Chalker Young Writer’s Contest and was a finalist for both the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest and Bennington Young Writers Awards. She received unanimous support from the Review Panel to become the first Youth Poet Laureate. - - www.howardcountymd.gov/News092424

In its first year, the Youth Poet Laureate program is a joint venture established through the collaboration of the County, the Howard County Arts Council, and local literary nonprofit HoCoPoLitSo. 

Poetry gives a significant outlet for self expression and I think it’s important to note that the Youth Poet Laureate program supports youth mental health every bit as much as fostering literary and artistic expression. I distinctly recall how much poetry meant to me during my adolescent years - - both in writing it and reading the work of others. Giving young people opportunities to express their most important thoughts and then really listening to their voices is a powerful gift. It’s bigger than a prize or a stipend. It is an investment, a planting of seeds. 

Poetry alone will not save the world, but it is a valuable part of “a balanced diet” of human endeavors that allow us to process big feelings, think through deep thoughts, and build our sense of self-worth. For young people that can mean participation in sports, the arts, community engagement, STEM/Maker activities, or entrepreneurial or philanthropic ventures. 

In comparison to those other pursuits, poetry has often had a small voice. It is after all, largely contemplative in nature. That doesn’t make it any less powerful. 

I look forward to reading Ms. Nguyen’s work and seeing how she uses her time as Youth Poet Laureate over the next year. Cheers to everyone involved.



Village Green/Town² Comments





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more