On Thursday, September 8, the 2012 New York City Youth Poet Laureate Program (YPL) will have its kickoff event at 5PM in the Governor’s Room at City Hall. The event will include performances by 2011 Youth Poet Laureate Justin Long Moton and the Youth Poet Ambassador team, as well as an interactive discussion between students and public officials on engaging the youth vote. If you are interested in attending the kickoff event, please contact Chyann Sapp, Youth Voter Coordinator, at csapp@nyccfb.info.
The YPL Program is a spoken word competition designed to energize youth voters through poetry. The YPL Program sponsors workshops for participants, ages 16-19, to hone their writing skills and teach them about voting and community leadership. After the workshops, students submit poems about voting to a panel of judges. The judges select those who will move onto a semifinal spoken word slam based on the applicant’s poetry portfolio, performance technique, and commitment to civic engagement. The top 12 semifinalists will then compete in a NYC Voter Poet Final Slam, at which the Youth Poet Laureate will be named. The winner will work to promote civic engagement throughout the city during the 2012 election year. The NYC Youth Poet Laureate and the other Youth Poet Ambassadors will represent the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) and the Voter Assistance Advisory Committee (VAAC) in their outreach throughout the city to potential youth voters.
We are still accepting applicants into the YPL Program! Please pass the information about this opportunity to any enthusiastic student who would be interested in participating in this program! Students can sign up for the YPL Program here.
The following is a list of upcoming events for YPL:
September 8, 2011: YPL Kickoff Event, the Governor’s Room in City Hall
September-October 2011: Citywide Writing Workshop Intensives
October 22, 2011 (3PM) & October 23, 2011 (6PM): Voter Poet Slam Semifinals, Nuyorican Poets Café
November 5, 2011: Voter Poet Slam Finals, Cooper Union, 7 East 7th St.
The YPL Program is a partnership between Urban Word NYC and the CFB. Urban Word NYC presents literary arts education and youth development programs in the areas of creative writing, journalism, college prep, literature and hip-hop. It provides writing workshops to teens year round and hosts the Annual Teen Poetry Slam. Students interested in the YPL Program can contact Mikal Amin Lee, the Program Director, at mikal@urbanwordnyc.org.
The 2012 YPL is sponsored by AT&T, Skull Candy, Hot97, and ConEdison.
