Greenhill student Madison Rojas awarded Youth Poet Laureate title
DALLAS - Mayor Eric Johnson named Joaquín Zihuatanejo the city’s first Poet Laureate in a special ceremony Wednesday morning at Dallas City Hall. Madison Rojas, a student at Greenhill School, was named Youth Poet Laureate.
In making the announcement, Johnson also proclaimed the month of April as Poetry Month in the City of Dallas.
Over a two-year term, Zihuatanejo will represent the City of Dallas as an ambassador of the literary arts by presenting his original poems at schools and community events. He will be a liaison, advocate and leader who will inspire the diverse residents of Dallas County to read, write, perform and appreciate the written and spoken word. Zihuatanejo will hold regular artist-in-residence office hours at the Central Library.
A native of East Dallas and graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, Zihuatanejo is the author of six collections of poetry, including the most recent, Arsonist, that won the 2017 Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry. He attended the University of North Texas and earned an MFA from the institute of American Indian Arts.His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Huizache, and Sonora Review, among other literary journals, and featured on NBC-DFW, HBO, and NPR. In 2009, he became the number one ranked slam poet in the world after winning both the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship and the World Cup of Poetry Slam Championship.
Zihuatanejo founded Dallas Youth Poets in 2012, a non-profit organization that seeks to serve student poets in Dallas and to take a team of youth poets to the International Brave New Voices Poetry Slam Competition. Currently, Zihuatanejo works with poets and students out of Elevate Studios in Oak Cliff as well as numerous speaking engagements and residencies around the country.
Current Youth Poet Laureate Madison Rojas will hold the title for one year. She will work with the Dallas Poet Laureate to encourage youth poetry. A student at Greenhill School, Rojas is the Junior Class President, a member of the Greenhill Student Diversity and Inclusion Council, Co-President of the Latinx Student Union affinity group, a member of the Greenhill Policy Debate team and a volunteer debate judge for the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance.
Dallas Public Library, the Office of Arts & Culture and Deep Vellum launched the new poet laureate program in June 2021 to recognize exemplary poetry and the poet’s role in sharing poetry with the greater community. The program is funded by the Friends of Dallas Public Library, Inc, the Joe M. and Doris R. Dealey Family Foundation, Office of Arts & Culture and Deep Vellum.
Dallas Public Library operates the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library and 29 branch locations, serving more than 9 million visitors each year. A library card is free for any Dallas resident. For information on the many free programs and services available at Dallas Public Library, visit www.dallaslibrary.org.
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