Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate Crowning Celebration
Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate Crowning Celebration
Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 6:00 p.m.
Hosted by Collected Works Bookstore via Zoom
Register for this online event at:
Esteemed Judges:
ADELMA AURORA HNASKO is trained as an educational anthropologist, receiving her bachelors in Social Anthropology from Stanford University and her masters in Education from Stanford School of Education. Building on her teaching experience at the high school level, coupled with years of ethnographic fieldwork with young people in community-based arts organizations throughout the U.S., Adelma studies the creative activities and interactions of youth, both during their time outside of schools as well as in school-based art programs. Rather than address youth as “at-risk,” or problems to be fixed, Adelma focuses on the capacities of young people as resources and resourceful participants in their communities. Adelma co-directed and taught the Stanford Linguistics and Urban Studies course, “Language and Youth Culture” and served as a Field Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She has consulted with numerous non-profits and foundations across the U.S., helping to develop distributed networks of support for young people’s learning in and through the arts. Adelma serves on the Santa Fe Arts Commission, is a trustee at Santa Fe Prep School, and co-directs Resolana Farms, a creative residency and retreat space in northern New Mexico.
MERCEDEZ HOLTRY is a poet, writer, mentor, and Chicana feminist who focuses on bringing out her roots, experiences and lessons learned through her poetry in hopes that they embrace her people and other artists around her. She has represented ABQ on multiple final and semifinal stages for national poetry events. She is a Brave New Voices finalist (2013), a two time finalist at the Women of the World Poetry Slam (2015, 2018), a National Group Piece Champion (2016), the winner of Modesto’s “ILL List Slam” (2017) among other awards. Mercedez is also an outreach coordinator for Warehouse 508, where she organizes workshops and poetry events for youth. She holds a degree in Chicano Studies and Journalism & Communications from UNM. She continues to cultivate the poetry slam community in Albuquerque, and co-founded and spearheaded “Burque Revolt”, an intergenerational poetry slam organization that creates safe spaces for all ages to enjoy. She is passionate about spoken word and aspires to continually learn all she can about her art through working, slamming and organizing for her community.
ELENA ORTIZ is a native New Mexican; a member of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, who grew up in Santa Fe. She received a degree in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. She is a Board Member of The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, an ex-oficio board member of The Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies at UNM and an ex-oficio board member of the Monte del Sol Charter School in Santa Fe. In addition to being a writer and poet, she is on the Freedom Council of The Red Nation-Santa Fe. Elena has worked in the educational travel field in Santa Fe for over 30 years.
ARTHUR SZE is the author of ten books of poetry and is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts. A recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, a Lannan Literary Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an American Book Award, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, as well as five grants from The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe. From 2012-2017, he was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and, in 2017, was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.