Amanda Gorman’s fellow laureates are tuning in for Super Bowl LV — but for poetry over pigskin

“I think it’s doing the work of forcing people to acknowledge poetry as a valid source of commentary and reflection and scrutiny. … I’m hoping it forces people to invest and acknowledge Amanda as integral to spaces they didn’t think poetry was a part of,” Jackson told CNN. “Maybe poetry is relevant everywhere, and it’s relevant during a football game.”

Added Frazier, “I’ll be super happy that someone who looks like me is up there on that stage. … The spirit of this moment is going to empower so many young people throughout the world.”

“Amanda Gorman is such a powerhouse,” Gabriel said. “Our young people deserve the grandest platforms for their perspective and stories. We hope that this is an awakening for others, especially those in positions of power, to consider supporting organizations that cultivate and champion youth voices.”

‘My words had given her a voice’

In elementary school, she would turn in 50-page papers with “the margins completely darkened,” she recalled. Teachers would tell her she didn’t need to add annotations, “but it was something that I liked to do.” Reading was another favorite pastime.

Meera Dasgupta performs at the 2020 National Youth Poet Laureate ceremony in May. Credit: Reggie Exilus

“It was not only an escape from reality, but it allowed for a multitude of realities to pour into my hands,” Meera, now 17, said.

Her poetry education as a youngster consisted of Shakespeare’s sonnets and the like. She didn’t understand the medium’s power, she said, before discovering slam poetry and spoken word, and it wasn’t until the Queens, New York, native joined her Stuyvesant High School speech team as a sophomore that she realized she could write her own poems.

“My words had given her a voice; it was something that she had always wanted to talk about and express her viewpoint on,” Meera recalled. “I kind of saw myself in her eyes, too. Emotions can move people in ways that facts cannot.”

Meera didn’t choose poetry; it chose her, the South Asian American teen said, giggling infectiously at how cheesy it sounds — but pointing out it wasn’t until she became a wordsmith she learned she was named after Mirabai, the 16th-century Hindu mystic poet.

“As a young person, she’s continued to find ways to make sure that not only her voice is heard. She’s uplifted so many communities with her. It’s an entire neighborhood she has brought up with her,” she said.

Scrutiny and ‘a forging of identity’

“Both of us are pretty hyper-aware a lot of our life paths are intertwined,” Jackson, 21, said.

Pat Frazier hands 2019 National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson a bouquet at the Library of Congress, as finalists Maren Wright-Kerr, left, and Haviland Nona Gai Whiting look on. Credit: Shawn Miller/Library of Congress

While you can hear something akin to Public Enemy rhymesmith Chuck D’s fiery cadence in their verses, Jackson’s and Frazier’s styles are quite different.

Frazier’s late grandmother wrote poetry. Frazier started out as a songwriter before transitioning to poetry. Fittingly, Frazier grew up in Ida B. Wells Homes, named for the journalist and civil rights leader, before their demolition a decade ago. As a youngster, Frazier was timid and “wrote letters to tell people things I was not confident enough to tell them and kept (the letters) to myself.”

“Everyone was on the computer all day, and my generation was not invited to pay attention very much,” the Columbia College cinema directing major said. “Writing was the first space where I was invited to pay attention. … Something in me wanted to feel gratitude for the things around me, and writing was a space for me to do that unapologetically.”

Asked about their pride in Chicago, Frazier stopped the interviewer. Pride is an interesting word, they said.

“What I recall about the neighborhood, I recall having so much shame of where I was from — the fact that I lived in a project. I was unable to appreciate what it was while I was there,” the 22-year-old told CNN. “A lot of me writing about Chicago is me desperate to remember it … writing about the places I came from, desperate to not lose those places and desperate to make them permanent.”

Jackson, too, has been writing most of her life, both songs and poems, though her middle school sonnets were “emo and weird,” she said, and she didn’t take the craft seriously until joining her high school’s spoken word club.

“It’s more a duty I feel to speak to my lineage as someone who is testifying and creating these poems as testament to my people and how they lived,” she said. “Chicago, it’s reduced to certain things and certain stereotypes. I feel it’s my duty to rectify those reductions and to tell a full story of the South that’s missed and obscured by these generalizations and lack of attention and love.”

“One of the oldest practices of scrutiny we have is poetry. It’s unlike all other art forms. It’s so innate in terms of articulating ourselves,” she said. “It lends itself to any class. … You can write a poem down on a napkin. You can write a poem on the notes in your phone. You can write a poem down anywhere. I think that’s why it continues to be a relevant form of scrutiny.”

“It allowed me to express an emotion that I felt and wasn’t able to consolidate immediately,” she said. “You can really write a poem about anything. You look up and see a clock and can talk about time and the future. I see a chair and you can talk about a seat at the table. If you choose to step into new perspectives, you’ll discover so much.”

‘Young poets are not here to play’

Frazier considers Gorman a sort of mentor, and the inauguration poem reminded them, “OK, you have something to say, and it deserves to be heard no matter who is outside the door threatening to kick it down.”

Pat Frazier says she’s still pondering “what does it look like to take the reins of this opportunity that Amanda has given to all of us … but still be firm in what I believe about my home and how I believe my people who I love so much will be protected.” Credit: Hannah Steinkopf-Frank/RedEye/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Alamy Live News

Jackson, too, was inspired. There “wasn’t a better person for that gig,” she said, especially considering Gorman would like to be inaugurated as President of the United States herself one day.

“I know that that’s super possible,” Jackson said. “It’s always great to see a Black woman actualizing her dreams. I’m happy for Amanda, happy for the state of poetry. I’m also meditating on the fact poetry is so integral to America and our story.”

Even if they won’t be decked out in Chiefs or Bucs gear and laying seanotes on the over-under, the writers are stoked to tune in for the Super Bowl — Frazier from Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, Jackson from Oak Park and Meera from her newish home in Oswego, New York.

They’re excited not just because Gorman represents what every poet can build but also what they can tear down.

Frazier sees the poetry world as dominated by ageism, which Gorman threatens to obliterate, while Meera sees the Super Bowl as a social construct representing “so many standards of identity” in America’s infrastructure, from the machismo of the game itself to the sex symbols taking the field as cheerleaders and performers.

Watching Gorman knock down barriers “leaves me hopeful the youth are becoming the future, and every day is an aspect of the future,” the 17-year-old said.

“The contrast of it all is going to be pretty impactful because we’ve never seen a Super Bowl quite like that,” Kara Jackson says of Amanda Gorman’s upcoming performance. Credit: Courtesy Urban Word NYC

“I’m interested to see those forces collide and intersect,” Jackson said. “I see it as interrupting a certain singularity and notion we have about that space. … It will force us to realize the autonomy of Black women.”

As much as Frazier admires Gorman, they wouldn’t necessarily want to follow her same path — for one, their politics vary considerably — but they’re eager to see how Gorman’s message is received around the world.

“There is no time for anymore waiting. We have things to say, and we have to say them now.”