Woman Crush Wednesday- Sarah Kay

Contributed by Makenna Brandt, Summer 2018 Intern

Sarah Kay is my favorite poet.

In the world of poets, old and young, classic and modern, alive and dead, I can say with confidence that she is my all-time favorite.

My junior year of high school, my English teacher decided we should spend a few weeks on spoken word poetry. Before that day, I wasn’t aware that poetry could be spoken out loud. I’d always thought it was meant to be cherished in one’s own head, heard through one’s own internal voice. Poetry just seemed too private, too intimate, to be spoken. Which was, of course, a ludicrous idea. Songs are (sometimes/rarely) just poems put to music.

So my English teacher showed us a TED talk given by the one and only Sarah Kay (of whom I had not heard before that point). In this TED talk, which can be found at the end of this post, Sarah delivers two of her poems (one of which, “B,” is a strong contender for the elusive title of My Favorite Poem), and discusses how she herself came to be the poet and educator she is today.

I fell in love with Sarah and her poetry right then and there. Not only a poet, Sarah is also an educator and founder of Project VOICE, which uses spoken word poetry to educate and improve literacy in schools and communities around the world.

To discover why Sarah Kay is my #womancrushwednesday, watch her TED talk below, and prepare to feel inspired.