Melinda Palacio
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| Kundai Chikowero and Madeline Miller photo by Rod Rolle |
Santa Barbara County's First Youth Poet Laureate is Madeline Miller, who was born in Mexico City and grew up in Santa Barbara. Her laurels wrap around poetry and community activism. She works as an assistant at a local law firm and holds several titles in slam poetry, including two first place titles at the 2021 San Marcos High School Poetry Slam and the 2021 Santa Barbara County Poetry Slam. Read Madeline's poem "Bird Song" and others by young poets at the SB County Youth Poet Laureate website.
The county's first Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador, Kundai Chikowero was awarded the Outstanding Youth Leader--the City of Santa Barbara in 2018. She has published two volumes of poetry and has won the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay and Poetry competition six times since 7th grade.
As a judge for the the Martin Luther King Jr. Contest, I've watched Kundai blossom over the years. This is a newly indoctrinated position and the young women are excited about their titles. Kundai said, "the groundwork has not yet been laid out," but she looks forward to more events. Both youth laureates have done great work, well before the title was bestowed upon them. Kundai shares two of her poems with La Bloga.
Untitled
By Kundai Chikowero
At the end of the day
When the news turns off
The paper discarded
The radio switched to aux
When sound is replaced with silence
Writing will still prevail
An art form existing beyond the voice of the speaker
One that can’t be powered off
Turned down
Or unplugged
You have a role
To act in the best interest
And when the breaking news is censored
And the complicated conversation you do not want to address is still occurring.
Thank the writing
The form of writing so
Rhythmical
Almost magical
The songs literacy
Preserved and distributed through paper
Because poetry is not just an art form
But a voice
Both quiet and loud
Explicit and vague
We must work as one
Listen as one
No us versus them
Breadcrumbing
Or performative action
There will come a day when people remember their voice
And at the end of the day
We will use that voice
Hypocrisy
By
Kundai Chikowero
An irrelevant question
ludicrous, may I add
If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it
Does it make a sound?
To propose that existence
May only be in existence
If it is existing in perception of a human
Who is also existing
George Berkeley begs the question
Taking the action of existing
Away from the existee
Earth
And putting it on the perceiver
Human
In vanity, the human experience
Has deviated from being on earth
To being just to be
egregiously expected to fund and sustain existence
From beings who cannot exist within themselves
With a higher level of consciousness
comes a greater responsibility
Existence is no longer left up to the earth
But maintenance lies on us
To carry what we create
As we will only go as far
As the load we create allows us to
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