Emanuelee “Outspoken” Bean says that he is “immensely proud” of the 2023 Meta-Four Houston team and the poems that they wrote and brought to life this summer, which led to the team’s first ever win at the Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam.
Bean, a Houston Poet Laureate Emeritus, champion performance poet, and educator, has coached the youth slam poetry team since 2009. He says it “means to world” to him to have witnessed the teen poets at work and to have guided them through choreography, edits, and revisions to bring out their best.
“Meta-Four Houston has been one of the reasons why I anchored myself to this city and still call it home,” said Bean in an email to Houston Arts Journal.
“Poetry is a world that’s made of your thoughts and brings more out of you than one may realize. I have been impacted by poetry, and it has shaped my worldview and has been saving grace for so many people,” he said. “I have made a career here in Houston, and it’s because of the power of poetry.”
During the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival—one of the oldest and largest youth poetry festivals in the world—Meta-Four Houston took first place at the Slam Competition on July 22, 2023 in San Francisco.
According to a press release, 20 teams from around the world competed in this year’s semi-finals. The top four teams (Houston, New York, Nashville, and Sacramento) then advanced to four rounds of spoken word performances in the finals, where Houston won.
While Meta-Four Houston has performed well at Brave New Voices in the past—ranking as a Top Ten team in 2014 and 2017 and scoring only a tenth of a point short of making the final stage in 2017, according to Bean—this year’s achievement is a historic win: the first time for Houston to take the title as the top youth poetry team in the country.
To prepare, the poets work together to come up with ideas and concepts, which often engage with social issues. Then they create and write group pieces, as well as individual pieces, which are set to original choreography. There are hours of intense practice, along with practice competitions.
At Brave New Voices, Meta-Four Houston performed poems that contemplated topics such as women’s health, the refugee crisis, the human condition, and race relations.
Founded in 2007, Meta-Four Houston is made up of six Houston teens, selected annually at the Space City Grand Slam, who represent the city at local and national performances and competitions. The program is run by Writers in the Schools, which aims to provide students with opportunities to discover their voices, amplify personal stories, and develop community and global awareness through writing and poetry.
The members of Meta-Four Houston are:
- Kylan Denney, a 2023 graduate of Humble High School, who will attend Stanford University
- Isabella Diaz-Mira, a 2023 graduate from St. John’s School, who will attend Washington University in St. Louis
- Samiyah Green, a rising sophomore at Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
- Ariana Lee, Houston Youth Poet Laureate and a 2023 graduate of St. John’s School, who will attend Stanford University
- Myaan Sonenshein, a rising 11th grader at Kinder HSPVA
- Adriana Winkelmayer, a rising 11th grader at the Emery Weiner School
Alinda “Adam” Mac served as Assistant Coach.
Research shows that interest in poetry has been on the rise in recent years, particularly among young people.
According to the most recent survey of U.S. trends in arts attendance and literary reading by the National Endowment for the Arts, the share of 18-24 year-olds who read poetry more than doubled between 2012 and 2017, jumping from 8% in 2012 to 17% in 2017.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, visits to the website Poets.org went up by 30%.
Texas has also seen an increase in the number of Poet Laureate positions, with Austin naming its first Youth Poet Laureate in 2021 and Dallas inaugurating both an Adult and a Youth Poet Laureate in 2022.
“Poetry has given me community and a way to more deeply connect with the world and other people,” said Ariana Lee in an email to Houston Arts Journal.
“This is my second year on the team, and I’ve been lucky to receive coaching from Outspoken Bean and Blacqwildflowr, as well as Adam Mac and Norah Rami, who were both previous members of Meta-Four,” she said. “With their help, I’ve grown more confident in my writing, speaking, and performance abilities, and I’ve made life-long friendships.”
Lee said that she discovered her love of poetry during the pandemic, when she started watching slam poetry videos online—and became inspired and compelled to try it.
“Some of the very first slam poetry videos I ever saw were of youth teams competing at Brave New Voices, so winning Brave New Voices was a full-circle moment,” she said.
Writers in the Schools will host a public celebration of Meta-Four Houston’s championship on August 15, 2023, from 7-9pm, at Stages.
Houston Arts Journal 