This Year’s Fresh(man) Poets

Monster. Mwinso Denkabe describes one with dark soulless eyes, abnormally dark skin, supernatural, more or less. Feeling trapped inside his own body that others look upon with prejudice, Mwinso references his experience as a black individual living in this society. These encounters surrounding racism and preconceptions prompted him to write his protest poem about racial injustice in his life. Similar...

After numerous performances detailing injustice, personal problems and much more, Audrey Chang instead presented the audience an out-of-the-ordinary poem: a piece that was lighthearted, punny and firmly separate from herself and her own woes. Her poem metaphorically tells a love story about two parallel lines: “Headed for the same destination, yet so far away from me. But oh, how I’d love to meet...

What if your best isn’t good enough? This thought, all too familiar to so many high schoolers, is what Ash Prodromou contends with in their poem, “Trying.” Written while they walked home from school after what they considered a botched audition for the poetry team, Ash wrote to sort out the thoughts in their head. “I've definitely struggled with self-image, and I never feel like I'm trying...