National Youth Poet Laureate Daniel Umemezie on using his words to bridge worlds

Transcript

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Geoff Bennett: For a decade, the National Youth Poet Laureate program has honored some of the country’s top young writers who use their words to inspire social change.

Fred de Sam Lazaro recently spoke with its newest laureate in his hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa. It’s part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: As Daniel Umemezie strides through the halls of Cedar Falls High School, he carries with him many titles, homecoming king, two-sport athlete, entrepreneur, and national youth poet laureate.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: In April, the 18-year-old was selected from a pool of hundreds of young writers, local poets laureate from sites around the country.

Daniel Umemezie, National Youth Poet Laureate: I’m still relatively shell-shocked right? I mean, it’s all of that kind of bundled into this emotion of excitement and honor.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: Umemezie grew up in Nigeria. He was passionate about art and music from an early age.

Daniel Umemezie: I played the piano for 14 years. I played the drums. I played nine instruments, actually. So I have done a lot of the arts, drawing, painting, crocheting, knitting. I mean, I did architecture for a while, so everything. I have dabbled in it all.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: And he was an avid reader, regularly scouring the books in the library of his preacher father.

Daniel Umemezie: I would read the dictionary, because our dictionary had pictures in it. And I loved to read. And I loved to find out all the different words, all the different ways you could say a certain thing.

Amarachi Umemezie, Mother: He has always been that kind of child that is hungry for knowledge. Sometimes, you just feel like his mind walks round the clock. Like, does this mind ever get a break?

Fred de Sam Lazaro: When Umemezie was 13, his mother got a nursing job in the U.S., so the family, Daniel, his parents, and two siblings moved first to Texas, then to Iowa.

Daniel Umemezie: The biggest thing I would say I experienced with it was the culture shock. I mean, you don’t say, I’m sorry. You say my bad. You don’t write with a pen. You use a pencil to shade in your answers.

It’s a bit of a shock when you grow up with a group of people, a group of friends, and you have to move, right? And then you leave all of that behind to start a new life and to meet new people and grow new connections.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: Writing and poetry in particular soon became the way Umemezie bridged his two worlds.

Daniel Umemezie: I come from two Nigerias, a Nigeria where words are rain on zinc tongues and laughter rumbles barefoot down the yellow throat of traffic, its hairy chest bare and clotted with coal. I come from a language, from a mouth laced with generations, so when I say the words O di mma, it is fine and it will be fine, and I am telling you that it is fine.

I come also from a second Nigeria, one where the generator’s chesty cough is the most reliable sound in the neighborhood, one where the madmen cry in the streets and no one knows their names, and no one watches as the street preachers lay hands on potholes, but the madmen still say amen and faith that one day God and the government might share a contractor.

I come from two Nigerias, and they do not wrestle in my ribs. They take turns breathing, one lung each, which is why some mornings I wake up short of air and do not know which country to ask.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: Does your mind go to particular themes? What do you write about?

Daniel Umemezie: A lot of my writing is based on memory, and memory of place, memory of people, memory of things, memory of objects, memory — just memories that I don’t even have. Memory doesn’t — is not a one-way street. You make a memory with someone, the person makes a memory with you. It’s a relationship, right?

And we can explore that with poems. You can explore that with music. And it really is a beautiful thing to understand that, once you get to expression, you then find communication a whole lot easier. And poetry is a way to kind of like toe that line back and forth.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: Umemezie tries to write at least one poem a day. His phone is filled with one-liners he jots down any time he gets a new thought, sometimes in the middle of the night. His notebooks are similarly packed with poems, he’s workshopping.

Daniel Umemezie: In the sun, I am visible through my skin, an ocean of stars see-through, sparsely interstitched into a pool of lucid wax. I couldn’t decide if it was black or wax. I can taste it in my saliva, freedom in all shapes and colors, like my daddy, feet stumping, tongue twisting-fever in his bones. And when I’m all grown and grown, I’d like to be a preacher.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: During his sophomore year, an English teacher encouraged Umemezie to enter a local poetry competition. He won and went on to become the Cedar Valley youth poet laureate and the Iowa student poet ambassador before winning the national honor this year.

Amanda Gorman, Former National Youth Poet Laureate: A country that is bruised but whole.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: He follows in the footsteps of poets like Amanda Gorman, who was the first national youth poet laureate in 2017, and read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

Umemezie will now travel the country for readings and workshops. He hopes to champion work that spurs social justice, political participation, and self-exploration.

Daniel Umemezie: What if silence is not absence, but an actor in this drama, presence with intention, like smoke in a closed room. I confess I do not understand its purpose. Some days, it protects me. Others, it feels like inherited debt.

I remember biting my tongue until it bled, not from fear, but from believing that speech would cost more than silence ever did.

I want a sea change, right, in society where youth are taken seriously. And then, from that point on, we can find that youth have the confidence to then speak up on matters, whether it be politics, whether it be matters of sexuality, whether it be matters of religion, whether it be matters of war.

And I see poetry as a huge, huge tool for that, because poetry gives you the freedom to say a lot of things. Poetry gives you the freedom to be free from whatever you might think holds you back.

Fred de Sam Lazaro: Umemezie graduated from high school in May. He plans to go to Iowa State University In the fall, not to study creative writing, but — get this — aerospace engineering. Already, he’s started a company with three friends developing drone technology to aid in disaster relief. And he hopes to earn a master’s someday at the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

For the “PBS News Hour,” this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Geoff Bennett: That’s the “News Hour” for tonight. I’m Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the “PBS News Hour,” thanks for spending part of your evening with us.