The Skagit River Poetry Foundation has three winners of its 2020-21 Student Poet Laureate contest from schools around the Skagit Valley: Olivia Elias, Lucy Shainin and Octavia Prosser represent Sedro-Woolley High School, Anacortes High School and Oak Harbor High School. The program aims to help train, support, mentor and encourage our young poets, and facilitate bringing poetry into their communities.

Prosser, a senior, grew up with her father driving them to school in an old truck with no radio, forcing his children to, not only learn lines, but think about what the poet was saying, and how the stanzas “crescendoed.” Poetry, she says, has made her more thoughtful about the world. Her hope is to bring the magic to young students. “It is important to remind everyone they can be poetic.”

Elias, a junior at Sedro High School, envisions a slam poetry contest for Sedro Woolley-High School and open mic nights at the Woolley Market to bring poetry into her community. “I want to show them a different world with my words,” says Elias, who found solace in poems when life became difficult. She knows the power of vulnerability and hopes to create a space where this is possible. Poetry, she says, helps people understand they are not alone.

Shainin developed her love of poetry with a visiting poet in her classroom. “Since then, reading and writing and poetry has helped me through many difficult times in my life.” Shainin would like to create an event that involves children in writing poetry, poems that highlight the diversity of voices in her school. Poetry, she says, helps her contextualize the world.

Upcoming events sponsored and organized by the student poet laureates include a virtual poetry slam. For more information: [email protected]

For more information about the program, or to speak to our poet laureates, contact Executive Director Molly McNulty: [email protected].

Source: Skagit River Poetry Foundation