Madison Poet Laureate Steven Espada Dawson and the Madison Arts Commission are inviting the public to the opening reception and poetry reading for Octavia Ikard, the City of Madison’s new Youth Poet Laureate, on Sept. 16, 5:30 p.m. at the Madison Municipal Building.
This celebration will mark the inaugural reading for Ikard and will also feature poems from Madison Poet Laureate Steven Dawson, Youth Arts Ambassador Dawry Ruiz, and outgoing Youth Poet Laureate Justin Festge Russell. After the reception, Ikard will read a poem to open the Madison Common Council Meeting.
The Madison Youth Poet Laureate serves a one-year term and will work with Dawson to represent the City of Madison through opportunities like poetry readings, school visits, and judging writing contests for the Madison Public Library. Their poems will be published in the National Youth Poet Laureate annual anthology, and they can apply for the National Youth Poet Laureate role.
“Every day, I challenge myself to answer why I write. So far, I can say this: I am the storyteller of my family,” Octavia Ikard said in a press release. “I listen to the hearts of the women around me and let their rhythm guide my pencil. I write about my mother walking over glass with her twin sister in the eighties. I write about my grandmother, who raised twelve brothers alone at age eight. I study her feet and hands, and her scrapbooks filled with dreams of who she could have been. I let their anger flow through my words and release it with every performance. My writing shows my love for myself and the Black women around me, including those in Madison. I hope to live long enough to be a story worth telling.”
Octavia is the fourth Youth Poet Laureate for Madison, following Madeleine Bohn (2022-2023), Maliha Nu’Man (2023-2024), and Justin Festge Russell (2024-2025).
The Sept. 16 event will take place in room 201 of the Madison Municipal Building, located at 215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
