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2025

Youth and the Future of Culture

A young man with dark hair and beard stands speaking in profile in a stage in purple light.
Malcolm Davis
Photo courtesy of the artist

Wordsmiths and Storytellers

“Everything we do is storytelling.”
—David Fankule

Poetry and storytelling are generational practices. They take on the characteristics of the era from which they emerge. From slams and cyphers to cafes and stages, today’s youth poets and storytellers are constructing lyrics, verses, and stories that defy tradition but are also grounded in past lives. Blending oral skills with deft lyricism, young wordsmiths offer audiences more than language: they inspire creativity, provide solace in difficult times, and open our eyes to possibilities.

Wordsmiths and Storytellers is a celebration of narrative, rhythm, and verse, and how youth continue to breathe new life into diverse literary and performance scenes. Through discussions and presentations, hip-hop artists, poets, and storytellers will share their origin stories and artistic visions, explore technique and craft, and demonstrate threads of kinship. Festival visitors can participate in poetry workshops and slams, uncover personal and ancestral narratives through storytelling, and try their hand at making beats and rhymes.   

Here we highlight three forms of expressions:
(Click a category to jump down and read more)

At the 2025 Festival, the power of language will be on full display. Join us as we play host to some of the voices that shape our worlds, challenge our ideas, and remind us of the beauty, power, and resilience embedded in words.

Hip-Hop

  • Born on the streets of the Bronx, New York, in the late 1970s, hip-hop has grown into an international phenomenon that embraces art, dance, music, and fashion, and it is synonymous with youth culture. Influenced by Black poetry and musical innovators such as Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets, hip-hop lauds language, rhythm, and flow and gives voice to personal narratives that can express socially conscious themes. Although firmly grounded in the mainstream, for many artists, the genre maintains its underground roots.

  • A young man wearing a ball cap, sweatshirt, and red Phillies T-shirt looks directly into the camera.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Andes MC
    La Paz, Bolivia

    Carlos Andres Orellana Patiño, Andes MC, is a rapper, singer, and songwriter. He grew up surrounded by music, but hip-hop was the genre that captured his attention. His stage name, Andes MC, reflects his Andean identity. In 2020, he released his first singles, “Sistemas de Control” and “Ser.” His 2021 album La Saga del Underground explores the roots of street rap. El Frío, a collaborative EP that fuses underground hip-hop with the introspection of his personal experiences, is characterized by its deep and honest lyrics. Andes MC remains committed to his mission of representing his community and staying true to the roots of underground rap, taking his message beyond borders.

    Facebook Page
    YouTube Page
  • A man with short dark hair and goatee, in black ball cap and gray sweatshirt poses in front of a truck.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Eber Miranda
    El Alto, Bolivia

    Rodolfo Eber Quisbert Quispe (Qullan Aymara), who goes by the stage name Eber Miranda, is an Indigenous hip-hop artist and Aymara language teacher dedicated to uplifting Indigenous communities across the Western Hemisphere. Working with organizations such as Rappolitics Denmark and Fundación Compa, Eber’s music activism has taken him to Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela to engage in public conversations on hip-hop, social justice, and overcoming prejudice. His current music group, Nación Rap, has performed and produced music with Bolivian and Cuban artists and mentors aspiring urban Indigenous rappers. Eber completed linguistic studies at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres and is now pursuing a degree in design at the ATENEA Institute.

Poetry

  • At the end of the twentieth century, no longer relegated to the high school English classroom or the printed page, poetry took on a more vibrant public identity. The new generation of poets recognized the power of the craft and its ability to speak truth, and they created spaces where the spoken word was the primary medium.

    Inspired by previous generations of poets but determined to exert and nurture their own literary identities, these young word slingers asked audiences to reconsider what poetry could be. They incorporated new rhythms and forms and experimented with new modes of presentation that were streetwise and brash but also mellow and evocative. The result was a literary renaissance that continues to grow. Today, poetry is everywhere, and young poets are making it their own.   

    The National Youth Poet Laureate program works with local youth literary arts organizations across the United States to identify and celebrate exceptional youth poets who use their voice to inspire change.

  • A young woman with long wavy brown hair poses next to a stream.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Harmony Devoe
    Vermont

    Harmony Devoe is the inaugural Vermont Youth Poet Laureate, a Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate runner-up, and chair of the Vermont State Youth Council. Her Filipino, Indigenous Nipmuc, and European heritage inspires her to address the injustices in our world, especially those brought upon marginalized communities and the Earth. She places a high value on the transformative power of words to educate, inspire, and create social impact. She believes it is her responsibility to write in the pursuit of a more just and equitable world. Harmony is sixteen years old and aspires to publish her first book in the near future.

  • A young woman with dark hair and heavy black jacket smiles, a nighttime cityscape behind her. Black-and-white photo.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Emily Hsu
    New Jersey

    Emily Hsu is a Taiwanese American artist and writer based in New Jersey. As a 2025 YoungArts winner with distinction in writing/spoken word and the 2024-2025 inaugural Edison Youth Poet Laureate, her written, visual, and performative works have been recognized by the Congressional Institute, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and the National Council of Teachers of English, among others. Her piece “Falling Up” was displayed in the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon Tunnel and her “Thirst” was collected by the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Pennsylvania. She is an alumna of Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Kenyon Young Writers Workshop, Interlochen Arts Camp, School of the New York Times, and architecture programs at Carnegie Mellon and the Rhode Island School of Design.

  • A young woman with long dark braids, glasses, and black blazer over a fucshia blouse smiles.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Elani Spencer
    New York

    Elani Spencer is a nineteen-year-old poet from Rochester, New York. She currently attends Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, as a creative writing major. She was crowned Roanoke’s first-ever Youth Poet Laureate in 2023. She is an intern for the Roanoke Arts Commission and an editorial intern and social media manager for the Artemis Journal.

    Website
  • A young man with black hair and black sweater speaks on stage in from of a microphone. A screen behind him reads Poetry Out Loud.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    王潇/Evan Wang
    Pennsylvania

    王潇/Evan Wang is the author of Slow Burn (Northwestern University Press, 2026), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize, and the ninth Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. His work has appeared in POETRY Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere, and has been featured at and recognized by the White House, Button Poetry, NPR, TEDx, and more. He is a two-time National YoungArts Winner, a Scholastic National Gold Medalist, and a commended Foyle Young Poet of the Year.

    Website

Storytelling

  • Storytelling is an ancient form of communication, and stories are the foundation of human experience. Whether on front porches or on stages, or through podcasts and other mediums, storytelling draws from personal experiences, invokes histories, and weaves parables that help us make sense of the world. Storytellers listen closely and can find the unexpected in the mundane and the subtle in the fantastic. By exploring the many threads humans share and exposing listeners to new worlds, they uncover connections between people that teach us about ourselves and those around us. We are made of stories, and we are all storytellers.

  • A woman withlong wavy dark hair, long blueish eyelashes, and a cheetah-print top smiles.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Jada Anderson
    Maryland

    Jada Anderson is a recent college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a passionate storyteller, and a lifelong learner. With a deep understanding of human behavior and a passion for learning about her ancestral history, she connects with others by sharing insights and lessons that can help people grow. Through the art of storytelling, Anderson creates an atmosphere where individuals feel safe to learn, inquire, and explore their ancestry and challenge themselves to be better. Through her own rendition of personal and ancestral storytelling, and her empathetic nature of outreach, she seeks to encourage growth in all aspects. Her work draws upon the passion she has for understanding her past and honoring her ancestors.

  • A man with dark hair in a ponytail and bushy beard speaks into a microphone in front of an outdoor stage.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    Malcolm Davis
    Kentucky

    Malcolm Davis is an “Affrilachian” storyteller and theatre practitioner. Born and raised in Kentucky, he is dedicated to uplifting Black narratives within Appalachia through living history performance. In 2023, he founded the Affrilachian Arts Institute to build Black Arts infrastructure for a new generation of artists across Kentucky and Appalachia. His solo-performance piece, The Slave, Monk Estill, is a journey into the revolutionary war in Kentucky, when one Black man had the skills and the willpower to make his mark on the war and his country and, in return, was emancipated.

    Website
  • A man with long dark locs and beard, wearing a tan cowboy hat and pale purple and orange outfit, sits at the front of a stage with a hand drum slung over his shoulder.
    Photo courtesy of the artist
    David O. Fakunle
    Maryland

    David O. Fakunle, PhD, is a “mercenary for change,” employing the necessary skills and occupying the necessary spaces to help strengthen everyone divested from their truest self. He has applied artistic and cultural practices such as Black storytelling, African drumming, singing, and theater in the proclamation of truth, collaborating primarily with organizations in the D.C. metropolitan region. Fakunle is the co-founder and CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that utilizes African oral tradition and storytelling for healing and growth; director of the T.E.A.C.H. (Transforming Equity through Arts, Culture & Health) Department at the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum; and chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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