One of many issues that has at all times made me pleased with being a part of CUNY is its extraordinary poetic legacy, which matches again many years and contains many poet laureates. And now, I’m particularly moved to see our newest poetry prodigy, Stephanie Pacheco, a younger pupil whose work has already been acknowledged on a nationwide stage, put her CUNY expertise into verse.
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of becoming a member of Stephanie at an occasion the place we marked Nationwide Poetry Month by unveiling her poem “Dear CUNY,” her lyrical and stirring ode to CUNY’s energy to propel and elevate New Yorkers of each background and carry your complete metropolis.
“I don’t know of any other school that runs its city like you / That paints its town with its face like you,” she learn on the occasion at Queensborough Neighborhood Faculty. “Everywhere I turn, every building is a student / Every train car is a classroom . . .”
Stephanie, who’s learning writing and literature at Borough of Manhattan Neighborhood Faculty, was named the eighth Nationwide Youth Poet Laureate final spring. It was her newest honor after being chosen because the youth poet laureate of New York Metropolis and turning into the primary to hold the title for New York State.
Her poem’s admiration for CUNY and public larger schooling, together with its transformative advantages, serves as an important beacon, particularly throughout these unsure instances when schools and universities are dealing with intense scrutiny and a few are questioning the worth of a level.
‘Poetry U’
Stephanie’s acclaim as an up-and-coming poet carries ahead a wealthy CUNY custom. We’re the house of so many famend and rising poets that The New York Occasions as soon as dubbed CUNY “Poetry U.” They embrace the good Audre Lorde, a Hunter Faculty alumna who taught at three CUNY schools and was New York State Poet Laureate, and former poet laureate of the US Billy Collins, who taught at Lehman Faculty. Present college members embrace Tyehimba Jess, Pulitzer winner and a distinguished professor on the Faculty of Staten Island, and American Ebook Award winner Kimiko Hahn, a distinguished professor at Queens Faculty. To call just some.
All of them, and now Stephanie, are a part of our longstanding dedication to the humanities as a foundational a part of a CUNY schooling. Stephanie’s success is very inspiring as a result of she is constant this proud custom as a 21-year-old neighborhood faculty pupil. It’s a theme that drives her newest work. She says that when she sat down to write down a poem about what it means to be a CUNY pupil, and what it takes, the phrases poured out and got here from a deep place.
“It was like the pen was just moving on its own,” she instructed The New York Occasions. “I wanted it known that this young person was a public college student. I want it to be known that we CUNY students, that we public school students, that we too are excellent, that we are extraordinary.”
Matos Rodríguez is the chancellor of The Metropolis College of New York (CUNY), the most important city public college system in the US.
