A NOTE OF THANKS
Welcome to the 10th Annual National Youth Poet Laureate Commencement Ceremony.
Tonight, we gather in gratitude and celebration. Poetry continues to thrive in Nebraska because of people like you, those who read, write, listen, teach, encourage, and believe in the power of words. From generations of Nebraska poets to the vibrant energy of slams, open mics, and classrooms across our state, we are part of a living literary tradition.
To host this national celebration in the newly opened Omaha Central Library is a true honor. This is the first time the National Youth Poet Laureate Commencement has been held in the Midwest, and we are proud to welcome the nation to Omaha.
This evening comes at the close of National Library Week, whose theme is Find Your Joy. There could be no better setting than a library, where stories are discovered, imagination is nurtured, and so many first learn that their voices matter.
Most of all, we welcome the finalists and young poets joining us from across the country. Thank you for trusting us with your stories and your brilliance. Tonight belongs to the young artists whose words remind us what courage, leadership, and possibility look like.
Our deepest thanks to Omaha Public Library for opening this beautiful space, and to Urban Word for building a national platform where youth voices can be celebrated.
To our sponsors, volunteers, interns, Teaching Artists, and donors: thank you. Your generosity made this evening possible.
As you listen tonight, I hope you feel the connection that brought us together. I hope you find joy in these voices, these stories, and in the reminder that the future is already speaking.
With gratitude, Zedeka Poindexter
Executive Director of Nebraska Writers Collective
Heider Family Foundation
PROGRAM
WELCOME
Jewel Rodgers
Nebraska State Poet
OPENING POEM
Stephany Orellana Gomez
2026 Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate
REFLECTIONS & HISTORY
Michael Cirelli
Executive Director of Urban Word
NATIONAL FINALIST READINGS
Malaya Ulan
“Dish of Repentance”
Rishi Janakiraman
“Requiem”
Chloe Chou
“ars poetica with baba’s 85 inch tv”
Daniel Umemezie
“In my mind it’s all paper planes”
MAYORAL PROCLAMATION READING
Victoria Bogatz
2025 Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate
Midwest Runner-Up
VIDEO ADDRESS
Evan Wang
2025 National Youth Poet Laureate
FINAL READINGS
Daniel Umemezie
“Two Nigerias”
Malaya Ulan
“To the boy in my class”
Chloe Chou
“poem for 2048”
Rishi Janakiraman
“An Editor Says”
GRATITUDE
Zedeka Poindexter
Executive Director
Nebraska Writers Collective
ANNOUNCEMENT OF STATE WINNERS
Michael Cirelli
NATIONAL AWARD PRESENTATIONS
Cassandra Quayson
National Youth Poet Laureate
Program Network Manager
MEET THE 2026 FINALISTS
The National Youth Poet Laureate Program , an initiative of Urban Word, celebrates our nation’s top poets who are committed to artistic excellence, civic engagement and social impact.
Founded in New York City in 2008, the Youth Poet Laureate Program partners with local and national literary arts organizations across the country to elevate youth voices at the forefront of social change. Program partners and supporters include the Academy of American Poets, the Library of Congress, the Poetry Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
» youthlaureate.org
Daniel Umemezie is a NigerianAmerican poet whose work explores cultural inheritance and displacement, using bodily transformation as both metaphor and form. His poetry develops a realm between interior experience and external reality. His work has appeared in the North American Review, Scholastic, Magpie Journal and many more. He is forthcoming in Polyphony Lit, and he has been recognized as the Iowa Student Poetry Ambassador, the Kenyon Young Writers Program, the Iowa Poetry Association, Humanities Iowa, and others. Daniel positions cultural specificity as formal resistance, creating what he describes as “architecture of consciousness.”
Rishi Janakiraman is a poet, critic, and journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Poetry Daily, Sontag Mag, Rust + Moth, and multiple national and international anthologies. He is the National Student Poet of the Southeast and North Carolina’s inaugural Youth Poet Laureate, and his honors include winning 7 Scholastic national gold medals, three best of SNO journalism distinctions, and a Foyle Young Poet of the Year award, among others. As the Editor-In-Chief of Polyphony Lit, he is currently using a $10,000 It Gets Better Changemakers national grant he was awarded to produce a queer youth anthology—managing an eight-person editorial team, printing 75 copies, and distributing to rural schools nationwide. He also served as the managing editor for the yearlong anti-censorship blog series “Love in the Time of Banned Books” that has published art, criticism, and journalism in direct response to the recent rise of book bans in libraries, while his reporting on queer student safety at his school has prompted administrative action. He is most passionate about expanding access to information and literature, something he believes demands the attention of anyone making art today.
Chloe Chou is a freshman at Stanford University studying Computer Science and Economics. She has served as the California State Youth Poet Laureate (2024-2025), as well as the Daly City Youth Poet Laureate and South San Francisco Youth Poet-in-Residence (2022-2023). She is an alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and SUNHOUSE Literary’s mentorship program. As the founder and editor-in-chief of Cloudy Magazine, she has reviewed hundreds of art and writing pieces from over 25 countries, creating an accessible global platform for youth voices. In other civic spaces, Chloe has served as a senior editor at Polyphony Lit, the president of her high school district’s student advisory board, a student researcher at UCSF, and a science policy intern at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her creative and civic work has been recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives, the California State Senate and Legislature, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, the Bennington Young Writers Awards, Poetry Out Loud, JUST POETRY!!!, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and more.
Malaya Ulan served as the 2024-2025 Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Ulan is a communitybased multidisciplinary poet whose identity as a Filipino American shapes her craft. She has recently delivered a TEDx Talk at TEDxPenn’s 2025 Conference: Volta on poetry as activism and healing. Ulan has spoken at the United Nations Headquarters during the Fourth Review Conference of the Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons. She is the co-founder of the performance collective AniMalayaWorks—a 2025 NEFA National Theatre Project and 2022 MAPFund awardee. Ulan’s poetic documentary “Something About These Waters” was also featured in the Color Congress: Resistance and Joy National Film Festival and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Ulan hopes to continue her work bridging communities through storytelling and poetry as the 2025 Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate.
2025-26 NATIONAL YOUTH POET LAUREATE
Evan Wang (王潇) is the 9th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, the first male and Chinese individual to hold this title, author of Slow Burn (Northwestern University Press, 2026), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize, and a GLAAD 20 under 20 honoree. His work appears in POETRY Magazine , The Kenyon Review , Waxwing, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere. He has been featured at and recognized by the Biden White House, the United Nations, the Academy of American Poets, Teen Vogue, the Smithsonian Institution, and Google DeepMind. Evan is a student at Harvard College.
» sincerelyevan.com
