3 Questions with Chicago’s Youth Poet Laureate

Chicago is a poetry town. The city’s first-ever poet laureate, avery r. young, has been leading the lyric charge the past two years. Now, there’s a teen poet on the scene: Youth Poet Laureate Eila Kittikamron Mora.

Without poetry, Kittikamron Mora says she would have “turned into a ball of obscurity.”

The 17-year-old finetuned her craft with Young Chicago Authors before she was selected as the city’s youth poet laureate. This weekend, she’ll be reading at Fountain Square Lit Fest in Evanston.

Ahead of the event, Kittikamron Mora sat down with Hey Chicago to discuss her journey. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Describe one of your favorite poems you've written. What does it mean to you?

“Disciple.” The longest poem I’ve ever written. I was visiting family in Miami. I hadn’t come out [as trans] to anyone … In Miami, I speak Spanish, and the language is so binary. I would be called mijo and hijo … I felt super displaced … Then I just opened a Google Doc and started writing.

“I envisioned a bunch of people crowding around this trans woman who was dying in a storm. And they were mourning her death but butchering her pronouns. … It felt like I was in a trance. It was the first poem I felt truly invested in.”

How does living in Chicagoland influence your work?

"avery r young said, ‘Anything you need, you can come to me and ask me.’ It’s crazy that I’m in this position. His style is so unique and singularly his, it’s inspired me to find my uniqueness.

“Everyone I worked with at YCA, and my fellow youth poet laureate finalists, they’re all so professional and nice. The way they perform is very theatrical, but they’re also so clear and have such good diction. That’s what young Chicago poetry is to me.”

What excites you about the Chicago poetry scene and your new position in it?

“The kids I meet are all super excited and committed to poetry. They truly love it as an art form, and I’m excited to bring the weirdness, bizarreness, and unintelligibility of poetry to the community. Maybe it’s ok not to be understood. Poetry doesn’t need to be understood … I want other poets to know that they can be as crazy as me.”

Over the next year, Kittikamron Mora will do a reading tour, performing at galas and events including one with Gov. JB Pritzker as well as the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize ceremony.