Rhode Island Poet Laureate, Tina Cane, and The Rhode Island Center for the Book, have chosen Lourdes Nicolella, of the Moses Brown School, new Youth Poetry Ambassador and Adi Gamache, a student at The Met, as our state’s new Deputy Youth Poetry Ambassador. Adam Fontaine, Smithfield High School and Cyprus Weaver, Westerly High School, received Honorable Mentions.
Lourdes is a senior at the Moses Brown School where she serves as the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine, Omnia. Her goal as ambassador is to “create an inclusive youth literary community within RI, where young people of all different backgrounds are welcomed and encouraged to use their minds, hearts, and voices as a force for social justice.”
Judge and State Poet, Tina Cane, also selected Adi Gamache to serve as Rhode Island’s new Deputy Youth Poetry Ambassador. The Deputy Youth Poetry Ambassador collaborates with the Ambassador and performs any duties in her stead, should she be unavailable. Adi says, “being named the Deputy Youth Poetry Ambassador is an incredible opportunity which I will try my best to live up to. To be able to meet and learn and share one’s art with others is a gift few get. More than anything, what I want to do with my poetry is change- if only for a second- the way someone views the world. Perhaps that is how the world itself is changed–with dominoes of repeated hope.”
A launch and reading celebration will take place at the State House Library in late February.
Lourdes will receive a $250 cash prize, an opportunity to record a reading for Cane’s distance reading series, Poetry is Bread., a reading with other youth at a Providence Community Library branch or at another Rhode Island branch and the opportunity to have her poetry featured through the Poetry in Motion, RI on RIPTA busses state-wide.
Adi will receive a $100 cash prize, the opportunity to have his poetry featured through the Poetry in Motion, RI on RIPTA busses state-wide, and an opportunity to read with other youth at a Providence Community Library branch or at another Rhode Island branch.
