By: T. Felder
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 11/13/22 – On November 1st Bronx native Stephanie Pacheco was awarded the 2023 New York City Poet Laurate Award at the commencement ceremony held at the Federal Hall in downtown Manhattan. The award is granted to young writers committed to leading and creating change in their communities through civil service and poetic activism.
Pacheco was selected from thirteen finalists who were part of a six-week paid fellowship program led by Urban Word NYC and hosted at the Federal Hall. During her award speech, Pacheco said, “I am honored to have this title and be able to represent the communities that I love so dearly; this is a win for all of us. We are supposed to dream big.” Her poetry has been influenced by her life growing up in the Bronx, which is why her focus is on issues of social justice and equal rights to education.
Pacheco will begin a one-year literary tour in the New York City metropolitan area in the coming months
The NYC Youth Poet Laureate award began in New York in 2008 as the nation’s first-ever youth poet laureate program and has since spread to dozens of other cities. That led to creating a national competition, with the 2017 inaugural winner, Amanda Gorman, reading her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration and, more recently, addressing the U.N. General Assembly.