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Broward County Library and Ellsworth Public Library are hosting &ldquo\;An Online Conversation with Alexandra Huynh&rdquo\;\, National Youth Poet Laureate\ , as part of the NEA Big Read program. \; Alexandra Huynh will discuss her life\, poetry\, and answer participants&rsquo\; questions during this online conversation. Alexandra&rsquo\;s passion includes passing on her o wn experiences to others. \; \;
\nAlexandra Huynh is an 18-y ear-old second-generation Vietnamese American poet from Sacramento\, CA. S he is a 2021 Sacramento \;Youth Poet Laureate\, a program of Sacrament o Area Youth Speaks\, and is a \;Western Regional Ambassador and the < a href="https://www.youthlaureate.org/">2021 National Youth Poet Laureate< /a> of the United \;States. \;Alexandra began writing poetry in el ementary school in the form of song. She gravitated towards poetry as a me ans to \;express complex emotions\, but she seldom \;shared her wo rk. When she competed in her \;first poetry slam in high school\, she landed a spot on the Sacramento Area Youth Speaks \;Slam Team\, which would go on to compete at the International Brave New Voices \;Festiva l. Heartened by the warm and \;visionary people she met\, she has been immersed in poetry ever since. As a second-generation individual\, \; Alexandra employs poetry as a tool of self-reclamation and social justice for \;marginalized communities. She embodies a radical pride in her&nb sp\; Vietnamese \;heritage\, and seeks to write her story \;outsid e of the context of whiteness. \;Through poetry\, she hopes to give&nb sp\;students a vocabulary to articulate their lived experiences and empowe r them to shape their future.
\nThe 2021 South Florida Youth Poet Laureate Isabella Ra mí\;rez will be serving as our moderator for this conversation. She is an award-winning writer from Lake Worth\, Florida who was appointed as the 2020 National Student Poet of the Southeast\, one of the highest h onors for youth poetry in the nation. Some of her accolades include placin g first in the 2021 Louder Than A Bomb Florida Indy competition\, earning a National Silver Medal from the Scholastic Art &\; Writing Awards\, ea rning Merit Winner and Honorable Mention designations in Spoken Word from the National YoungArts Foundation\, getting published in &ldquo\;The Best Teen Writing of 2020\,&rdquo\; and winning the 2021 Emerging Writer Button Poetry Video Contest. Through poetry\, Isabella hopes to inspire others a nd provide a platform for social justice. \; The South Florida Youth P oet Laureate competition is a collaboration between the Jason Taylor Foundation &rsquo\;s \;Omari Hardwick bluapple Poetry Network\, and \;Urb an Word\, a New York-based literary arts education and youth development o rganization.
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The NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Ar ts Midwest. \;
\nThe \;Broward Public Library Foundation \;is a 501(c) 3 charitable o rganization incorporated in 1982 committed to enhancing the collections\, programs\, and services of the Broward County Library system beyond the me ans of public funding. \;Broward Public Library Foundation \;is th e proud sponsor of the NEA Big Read program striving to achieve a state of excellence throughout the county's family of libraries.
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The \;Ellsworth Public Library\, located in Ellsworth\, Mai ne\, is a vibrant and essential community resource\, educating and inspiri ng the people we serve.
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