Nanaimo Youth Poet Laureate reflects on year of growth, connections, and writing
Pierce said it is important to teach youth how to write poetry as a way to express themselves as they go through the ups and downs of growing up. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
It has been a busy year for Paige Pierce as she finishes up her first year as the City of Nanaimo’s Youth Poet Laureate.
Pierce came down into the studio to talk about her first year in the role.
She said during the first six months she spent time getting out and introducing herself to the literary community in Nanaimo and speaking at different city council meetings and events around the community.
Now, Pierce said that in the last six months, she has been able to make connections in the poetry community.
“And so the real joy for me has been getting to work with youth and getting some of my friends that love poetry or might secretly love poetry out there and doing readings,” she said.
Along with speaking at events, she found different ways to bring poetry to Nanaimo.
“I've been really connected with a lot of amazing organizations in the community, and they've given me so much grace and so much freedom in how I want to navigate this role,” she said. “If I have an idea, people have yet to tell me no to anything which is crazy”
As the youth poet laureate, Pierce’s role is to be the “poet for the youth,” something she is passionate about doing in her role and as a pre-service teacher in her school practicum.
Currently, the poet is finishing her last year in the Vancouver Island University education program before she graduates in June of next year.
She said she has created events to encourage more youth to try their hands at poetry, such as holding a booking binding workshop at the Vancouver Island Regional Library and running a youth poetry camp over the summertime.
Pierce said through her time working with youth she has found a lot of students are unable to find poetry they can relate to, and this can turn them off from the art form.
“So that is really my mission. I teach a lot of poetry through music because I think that the two are so interwoven with one another,” she said. “It is always surprising at the end of my poetry units to say, ‘okay, how do you feel about poetry?’ and I've found in my experience over the last year and a half, that people actually don't hate it as much as they think that they do when they enter a poetry unit.”
She notes it is important to find new ways to introduce youth to poetry such as having students analyze a rap song over a poem they cannot relate to.
“There's lots of different ways that you can get people to write poetry that isn't just me sitting down and saying, ‘here's a rhyme scheme, do something with it.’ Or, ‘here's an Edgar Allan Poe poem from ages ago that is not relevant to you anymore–it's really cool, but it's not relevant to you anymore, let's dissect it,’” she said.
As someone who started out writing poetry at a young age, Pierce said, young people tend to be introverted about their poetry work and it is important to find ways to encourage them to be proud of the work they do.
“So it's a matter of pulling people out of their shell, that's one aspect of it, and then also getting the public to just not feel so much aversion to poetry because they've had bad experiences with it,” she said. “That's really my goal is to make poetry accessible and to make poetry interesting.”
This year, Pierce published her eighth poetry collection, losing languages, discussing the journey of grief she felt after the passing of her grandmother. She said writing poetry is the best coping mechanism for her during these hard moments.
“I think just from my own personal experience, poetry really has kept me sane over the last 10 years,” she said. “Your teenage years are hard, your 20s are hard, and if I didn't have poetry, I think that I would be a lot more manic and chaotic and all of these things because I would just keep it bundled in right?”
She said this is why it is important to teach youth how to write poetry as a way to express themselves as they go through the ups and downs of growing up.
“Dealing with your first breakup or dealing with grief or dealing with body image issues are things that everybody deals with at this point in our lives,” she said. “If you don't have a way to talk about it, to express it, to get it out of your head into something productive, it can really spiral, and it can really weigh you down. I know firsthand the way that having those big feelings and nowhere to put them or nowhere to air them out can be really hard for people, myself included.”
Looking forward to 2025, Pierce said she is excited to graduate from university and start her official career as a teacher. She said she is currently working on a new poetry book that she hopes will be published next year.
She said she is also looking forward to working with Neil Surkan, the newly appointed poet laureate as they both work on connecting the community with poetry.
“I'm just a major people-person, and I love to yap, especially about poetry. I think it's so fun to hear from people about their experiences and answer questions,” she said. I'm always around to answer questions about poetry–that's one of my favourite things, is being able to share the things that I've learned about my writing techniques, the process, about publishing, and things like that with the people who are around.”
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.