Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh converses with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen about her journey in poetry.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Alexandra Huynh is an 18-year-old Vietnamese American poet from Sacramento, CA. She is the 2020 Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate, a program of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, and is a Western Regional Ambassador and the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States.

Alexandra began writing poetry in elementary school in the form of song. She gravitated towards poetry as a means to express complex emotions, but she seldom shared her work. 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 Festival. 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 Vietnamese heritage, and seeks to write her story outside of the context of whiteness. Through poetry, she hopes to give students a vocabulary to articulate their lived experiences and empower them to shape their future.