Local High School Student Wins National Recognition in Poetry

Out of over 22,000 applicants nationwide, only five high schoolers are chosen as National Student Poets. One of these five, Vidhatrie Keetha, hails from New York City.

The award is presented by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. Each National Student Poet represents a different region of the United States: the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and West. This year the Northeast is represented by Keetha, a rising senior at Horace Mann School who lives in the Bronx. “Being selected as a National Student Poet has felt incredibly surreal,” Keetha said. “I’m very grateful for all of the opportunities it presents.”

Keetha explores a diverse range of topics through her poetry, from folklore and mythology to the natural world, from ancestral stories to Keetha’s own experiences. “I would consider my poetry to be multifaceted and somewhat ephemeral,” Keetha said. “I aim to use words to capture thought and fragments of experiences.”

Every year since 1923, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers has run the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, regional and national awards for teenagers based on art or writing samples. Tenth and eleventh graders who receive a National Gold or Silver Medal in the poetry category are eligible to apply for the National Student Poets Program.

Platform for Social Justice Advocacy

Keetha first heard of the program in ninth grade. “It was the first time I’d seen an example of poetry being taken seriously at the high school level,” she said. The program also provided teenage poets with a platform for social justice advocacy, Keetha said.

Over the next two years, Keetha continued to pay attention to the program, reading the work of past National Student Poets and learning about their accomplishments. “Given how talented the poets always were, I was very doubtful I’d ever qualify for the program myself,” she said. “I always felt that my poetry would end up being somewhat lacking.”

This year, Keetha was awarded a National Gold Medal in the poetry category of the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards. “[That’s] when I was notified that I was selected as a semifinalist for the National Student Poets Program,” she said. As one of 40 semifinalists, Keetha submitted a few of her original works, a recitation of two of her poems, and a video where she introduced herself and why she writes poetry.

Since being named a National Student Poet, Keetha has met the other four National Student Poets over Zoom. She has also attended virtual training sessions and workshops to prepare for her duties during the upcoming year. “So far, my engagement with the program has primarily been virtual,” she said.

As a National Student Poet, Keetha will serve as a “Poetry Ambassador” to her community. “Each National Student Poet is required to design a project that serves to raise awareness of poetry in their communities,” she said. Keetha will also attend multiple poetry related events in April, National Poetry Month, as well as the Louisiana Book Festival in October.

Live Audience

On September 27, Keetha will be formally appointed as a National Student Poet at the Planet Word Museum in Washington D.C., a voice activated museum that explores how words convey meaning. “I’m looking forward to meeting the other National Student Poets, as well as National Student Poets Program alumni, in person,” Keetha said.

The ceremony features poet Naomi Shihab Nye as the event’s keynote speaker and provides the National Student Poets with the chance to read their poetry for a live audience. “I’ve never formally read my poems in front of an audience before,” said Keetha “but it’s definitely something I’ve aspired to do.”

Keetha wasn’t always interested in poetry. Throughout elementary school, Keetha felt unsure “that poetry could be taken seriously, at least in a contemporary context.” That changed during a poetry unit in a sixth grade English class, when Keetha’s teacher encouraged her to read and write poetry daily. “I found writing in free verse to be oddly liberating,” she said. “It seemed to be a different and somewhat unconventional means of storytelling.”

Over the next few years, Keetha continued to write poetry, drawn to its brevity and its ability to take on whatever form she chose. “Aesthetically, poetry is very versatile, and this is why I think poems are so immersive – by finding different ways to stimulate the senses, a poem can recreate a brief experience, functioning almost like a memory,” Keetha said.

Part of what attracted Keetha to poetry is how it can be meaningful to many different cultures and traditions. Throughout all these heritages, poetry differentiates itself from prose by placing a greater emphasis on phrasing. Poetry highlights “the way the words sound, the way they are arranged on the page, the emotions and feelings they evoke, [and] the use of vibrant imagery and symbolism,” Keetha said.