Madison Youth Poet Laureate Celebration

media release: The city of Madison, the Madison Arts Commission, and Madison poet laureate Angela Trudell Vasquez invite you to a reading of the 2023-24 Madison Youth Poet Laureate applicants. After the reading, Trudell Vasquez will announce the selected poet who will becomes Madison’s second ever Youth Poet Laureate.

The celebratory reading will be held at 6:00 pm on June 15, 2023 at Pinney Library, 516 Cottage Grove Road Madison, WI 53716.

The Madison Youth Poet Laureate program is a partnership between the city of Madison and the National Youth Poet Laureate program, an initiative of Urban Word. The Youth Poet Laureate program honors talented poets from ages 13-19 years old and provides competitive opportunities for young people to showcase their literary art on the regional and national stage. The city of Madison celebrated the inaugural year of the the local program in 2022, and selected then 14-year-old Madeleine Bohn to serve as the city’s first Madison youth poet laureate. Through this initiative, Bohn read her poetry at Common Council, the Winter Festival of Poetry, and at Sequoya Library.

“Bringing the YPL to the city of Madison's young people is something I am most proud of in my tenure, and it was not done alone, many people came together to make this possible. Madeleine Bohn has been a great first YPL. Madison is the first city in the state to have this program through Urban Word. Mentoring the YPL Cohort has been a joy and I have watched them grow with every interaction and in how they support and show up for another has been a gift to witness,” says Madison poet laureate Trudell Vasquez.

The Madison Youth Poet Laureate serves a one-year term, and will be expected to give three public readings alongside the current Madison Poet Laureate during that time. Additionally, the youth poet laureate will have their poems published in the National Youth Poet Laureate annual anthology, and have the opportunity to apply for the national youth poet laureate role in the fall. To be eligible, applicants must be between the ages of 13 and 19 at the time of selection, and must reside within the city of Madison.

About the National Youth Poet Laureate Program

The National Youth Poet Laureate Program works with local arts organization across the United States to elevate youth voices that are committed to artistic excellence, civic engagement and social impact. The National Youth Poet Laureate Program is supported by the academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Parks Service, and many more, and is an initiative of Urban Word NYC, Inc., an award-winning youth literary arts and youth development organization.

About the Madison Arts Commission

The Madison Arts Commission’s (MAC) is an 11-member citizen commission appointed by the Mayor to advise the City about matters of arts and culture. MAC’s mission is to foster arts appreciation by initiating partnerships, developing new audiences, and sponsoring diverse artistic activities by emerging and established artists and arts organizations while preserving Madison’s rich artistic tradition. To support a full creative life for all, The Madison Arts Commission commits to championing policies and practices of cultural equity that empower a just, inclusive, equitable city.