The local teen poet laureate competition has been around since 2023, when Western’s own creative writing teacher Kelly Burnette and JMRL librarian Jess Moore collaborated to introduce a new way for young local writers to share their poetry. Those interested are asked to submit three poems, a letter of recommendation, and a short biography about yourself and why you think you would make a good teen poet laureate.
Last year’s teen poet laureate, Mazie Wiseman, is a current senior at WAHS. Wiseman won the 2025 competition with three unique poems: “Fibonacci,” “Orion,” and “The Tragedy of a Teenage Astronaut,” which they read at the 2025 Academic Awards Ceremony. This year, they were given the opportunity to attend the teen poet laureate naming ceremony as a judge, reading the poetry of the competitors and voting on which they thought were best. While they were the Teen Poet, they organized and planned poetry workshops and events at the JMRL Crozet branch, including an open mic poetry night and a visit from one of the leaders of the Young Writers Workshop, Margot Figgins. “I also put some of my work in the JMRL newspaper and got to publish my poetry,” Wiseman said. “It was fun to explore a leadership position in a more creative field for me. It was more interesting to be able to share my poetry with people, which is something that I love to do.”
Aside from being a poet, Wiseman has also taken up other leadership positions in the WAHS community. They are the captain of the Western mountain biking team, they work on the literary magazine “The Myriad” with other young writers, and they were involved with the James River Leadership Expedition. “I went on a trip over the summer, then I worked on this capstone project over the last year,” they said. “I built a duck box. and organized community events to teach my neighbors about conservation.” Wiseman is studying environmental science and plans to pursue a career in conservation, but said they definitely want to keep writing. “I’m going to miss hearing other people’s poetry because I think it’s such a valuable experience to share that with other people. It’s a good way to see into different people’s personalities and their own writing style,” they said.
This year’s new teen poet laureate, Alicia Fu, is a junior at Albemarle High School. Her distinctive poems center the theme of reminiscence and her own childhood experiences, particularly with her late grandfather. “[He] is the inspiration for a lot of my writing.” Fu says. The first two, titled “in port city Tianjin, you stopped smoking” and “an apology to 爷爷,” focused on Fu’s relationship with her grandfather, who died of a heart attack in 2023, largely due to his lifelong addiction to smoking. The poems explore her feelings of guilt and regret about how she spent her time with him, and entertains the idea of what it would be like if he had never gotten addicted. The third poem, “spring has come, and i will be reborn again,” is about Fu’s love of spring, and compares the blooming flowers in her yard to her growth during the warmer season.
As the teen poet laureate, she has numerous plans for what she will do with her new position. “I would love to host a slam poetry event! I’ve always found slam poetry to be so cool and have always wanted to try it out myself,” she said; “I would love to invite a slam poetry speaker to the library so we can learn from them, and expand the ways we view poetry as something that can be translated into spoken word and be expressed verbally rather than just how it is read on paper.” Fu is also interested in hosting writing workshops, including one specifically for the Writer’s Eye competition. “I think having a group brainstorm and work event where we can all popcorn off of each other’s ideas and find inspiration would be amazing, especially for younger students in elementary or middle school who are getting started with art-based poetry,” she said.
Fu is involved in many other extracurriculars in and outside of school. She is the president of Albemarle’s National Social Studies Honor Society; the co-captain of Albemarle’s robotics team, Deep Blue, where she helps design, build, and program robots; and a mentor for Albemarle’s National History Day club. She has participated in the National History Day Competition for three years, which aligns with her dream of becoming a journalist in the future.
Both Wiseman and Fu are looking to continue to encourage writers to persevere and share their work with others. “Keep writing, and don’t let the invisible audience in your head keep you from writing something that you want. Make art for yourself and don’t worry about other people,” Wiseman said. The new laureate shares Wiseman’s sentiments. Fu said, “never let anyone deter you from writing and doing what you truly love. Be stubborn about your interests and niche topics you want to write about, because that is what makes you unique. And don’t ever be embarrassed about being passionate, because that is one of the coolest and most amazing things a person can have towards something they love!”
