Downingtown’s Juliet Lubwama, one of five winners of the National Student Poet of the Year for 2017, is using her voice and talent to speak about social issues, writes Kharisma McIlwaine for The Philadelphia Sunday Sun.
The 17-year-old daughter of Ugandan immigrants recently returned from Washington, D.C., where she was attending the awards ceremony for the National Student Poets held at The Library of Congress.
Lubwama said she found inspiration to speak her truth in the form of poetry.
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“A lot of my poetry deals with my identity as a Ugandan American and as a Black American,” said Lubwama, a senior at Downingtown STEM. “Poetry gives me a way to reconcile both of those identities through the written word.”
Lubwama entered two poems in The Scholastic Arts and Writing Program, winning a medal for both, one gold and one silver.
Following her experience in the nation’s capital, Lubwama will join her four fellow National Student Poets at a master class in New York led by renowned poet and playwright Elizabeth Alexander.
“I truly hope to use this honor to show other young poets that their voices deserve to be heard,” she said.
Read the entire interview in The Philadelphia Sunday Sun here.
