In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Laura Harper Lake and Sarah Wrightsman sit down with Shayla Gerkin and Hazel Tompkins, two NH Teen Poet Laureates! The mission of the NH Teen Poet Laureate team is to maintain the accessibility of poetry for all NH teens, and to spread the power of writing. In this episode, we’re going to talk about how! The NH Teen Poet Laureate team creates opportunities for teen poets across the state to publicize their work through a newsletter and annual literary magazine. Shayla and Hazel, from Exeter High School and Hanover High School, respectively, share their experiences with poetry from learning the classics in school to the styles and subject matters they’re drawn to now. You can find the NH Teen Poet Laureate team online at https://goodpoetryzine.wixsite.com/nh-teen-poets-laurea and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/nhteenpoets. Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Be friends with us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/CreativeGutsPodcast and Instagram at www.Instagram.com/CreativeGutsPodcast. If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Laura Harper Lake and Sarah Wrightsman sit down with Shayla Gerkin and Hazel Tompkins, two NH Teen Poet Laureates! The mission of the NH Teen Poet Laureate team is to maintain the accessibility of poetry for all NH teens, and to spread the power of writing. In this episode, we’re going to talk about how!
The NH Teen Poet Laureate team creates opportunities for teen poets across the state to publicize their work through a newsletter and annual literary magazine. Shayla and Hazel, from Exeter High School and Hanover High School, respectively, share their experiences with poetry from learning the classics in school to the styles and subject matters they’re drawn to now.
You can find the NH Teen Poet Laureate team online at https://goodpoetryzine.wixsite.com/nh-teen-poets-laurea and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/nhteenpoets.
Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Be friends with us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/CreativeGutsPodcast and Instagram at www.Instagram.com/CreativeGutsPodcast.
If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com.
Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:00] LHL: I'm Laura Harper Lake.
[0:00:01] SW: And I'm Sarah Wrightsman.
[0:00:02] HOSTS: And you're listening to Creative Guts.
[OVERVIEW]
[0:00:18] LHL: Hey, friends. Thanks for tuning in to Creative Guts.
[0:00:20] SW: On today's episode, we're talking with two of New Hampshire's Teen Poet Laureates. Hazel Tompkins and Shayla Gerkin are both high school students in New Hampshire serving as Teen Poet Laureates. We love talking with young people on the podcast, and we know this is going to be a great episode.
[0:00:37] LHL: Let's jump right into this episode of Creative Guts with Hazel and Shayla.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:45] SW: Hazel, Shayla, we're really excited to have you on the podcast.
[0:00:49] SG: We're excited to be here.
[0:00:51] HT: Me, too.
[0:00:53] LHL: We met you, Shayla, at the live, or Slam Free and Fly poetry night at Exeter High School. Were you there as well?
[0:01:01] SG: I was not.
[0:01:03] LHL: Okay. All right. It's so cool to be able to have you in front of the mic now.
[0:01:07] SG: Yes, I'm so excited.
[0:01:09] SW: Yeah. This is a really exciting interview for a bunch of reasons. One, it's really cool to have teenagers on the podcast, and to talk to young people who are doing really cool stuff. Two, I feel like, I don't know, we've had a few episodes where we're talking to poets and we're talking about poetry, but it's just not a medium that we talk about enough. Three, since I know so little about what it's like to be a poet laureate, that'll be really exciting, too.
[0:01:31] LHL: Let's dive right in. What is it like to be a poet laureate? What does that mean exactly?
[0:01:37] HT: I'd say, the job of the New Hampshire Teen Poet Laureate Team is to really advocate for the power of poetry and make it accessible to everyone and all teenagers throughout New Hampshire. We do that by trying to publicize works and all that stuff. Producing a newsletter, literary magazine, and we really just try and advocate for the power of poetry, I'd say.
[0:02:01] SG: I agree. It's definitely taking on a leadership role in a team full of poets that love poetry and giving them a voice and a different type of medium of poetry. I just think it's a great place to advocate for teenagers who may not have voices and to really show them what poetry can be all about, because I know that finding poetry can be difficult, because you're usually taught rhyme schemes, A-B, A-B, and it's really boring and no one wants to learn about that. Once you really dive into free verse and you really understand what it's all about, I think that's what's really cool about being the poet laureate, because you can really dive into that.
[0:02:38] SW: How did you both become poet laureates? What does that look like? Do you have to apply? Does someone nominate you?
[0:02:44] SG: Last year, I was a member. That means that as a senior, you become the teen poet laureate. Usually, we do have applications that you go through and you submit poetry and you submit letters of recommendation from teachers and peers and things like that. Usually, we tend to have one or two poet laureates, but instead this year because we had such strong leaders in the group, we decided to make it a bigger, like a more of community vibe, instead of just one leader into not trying to make people feel worse about themselves for not getting the position, or something like that. It's more about as a group, we're all advocating for poetry for teens.
[0:03:26] LHL: I love that. That's so wonderful to have a collaborative leadership set up like that, as opposed to team captain of the varsity team and to have this hierarchy. It's more about the community and that's really nice.
[0:03:39] SG: Yeah. I definitely fought for more of a community vibe, because I lead my poetry team and the talent at my high school and we're more of a community. We're not presidents, or vice presidents, or anything like that. I think it just works so much more smoothly. People feel they have a voice. They don't feel like, this one person speaking for us.
[0:03:58] SW: That's really, really, really cool. Presumably, you all have one thing in common, which is your love of poetry. Is that something that at least for you two that developed at school, like what introduced you to poetry?
[0:04:09] HT: I took a couple of poetry classes and your normal poetry in middle school and absolutely hated it with every fiber of my being. I thought Shakespeare was overrated. I found all poets boring and mundane, except for one poem by E. E. Cummings, next to of course God America. That is the only exception. It wasn't till only about a year and a half ago when I wrote my first poem. I tried before, but I just felt embarrassed and the stigma kind of. I was like, I'm trying too hard. This is weird. Then I really gave it a shot when something in my life happened and I used it as a form of journaling almost, and then I wrote my first poem. Ever since then, I've been writing poems as a form of almost coping and journaling. Anytime something in my life happens, or I just have a thought, I write it down and develop it into a poem. That's how it entered my life.
[0:05:04] SG: I had a very similar experience. Sixth grade, I thought my English teacher was after me. She did not like me at all. I loved English, and I was like, “Are you kidding me?” All we did was memorize The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, and I was like, I'm so sick of learning all these different rhyme structures, and it wasn't my thing. Then I got into ninth grade where I had Mr. Magliosi as my freshman teacher.
[0:05:30] SW: Our friend, Mr. Magliosi.
[0:05:33] SG: Yes. He introduced me into slam poetry and taught me about free verse and different line breaks. I'm like, this is so different. This is not what I thought it was about. Ever since then, I had this poetry mindset, is what I like to say. It’s like, everything around me just becomes poetic.
[0:05:50] LHL: That's so beautiful.
[0:05:51] HT: For me, it was The Jabberwocky in third grade. Caluculai. That was what we had to memorize.
[0:05:58] SW: God, what did I memorize? I definitely had a class. This was more senior year of high school though, where we had a bunch of assignments where we’re just memorizing stuff. I was like, sorry, I don't see the point of this. I don't want to memorize old poems.
[0:06:10] LHL: I don't remember doing that at my high school.
[0:06:11] SW: Oh, you're so lucky.
[0:06:13] LHL: I mean, maybe I've just blocked it out if I did. I don't remember that though. I remember having to write my own stuff, but more in college. I remember it more in college.
[0:06:21] SW: Oh, that's interesting. I've been very probably on this podcast, very openly critical of the things that I was exposed to in elementary school, grade school and high school, because it was a lot of, like you said, boring poetry written by old people and books for that matter. Lots of white people. I don't know. It just felt very, there's so much art and poetry and writing out there that there was so much diversity that I could have been exposed to that I just wasn't.
[0:06:47] SG: I appreciate definitely the older poems now, but I think it's definitely important to really invoke the emotional response first, because that's really where your art comes from is from yourself and your own experiences and things like that. I mean, I always go back to Edgar Allan Poe now and read his stuff and get inspiration from it and things like that. There's definitely so much more modern poetry that should be really invoked into our learning. College board, man, they don't do that stuff. It's all old poems. I'm like, there's so many different poets that just really should be heard now.
[0:07:26] LHL: Let's dig into your styles and what subject matter that you both tackle in your work, whoever wants to go first.
[0:07:35] SG: I love metaphors. They're my favorite thing ever. As I say, I think there's this poetic mentality that you have. In your day-to-day life, I find that tying your shoes, or just these basic things, you could dive deep into that. It could be a situation ship. It could be so many of this process. I think it can just dive deep. There's so much you can do with poetry that many people don't really know. I love using metaphors and things like that and diving deeper into subjects in that way. I definitely love free verse, because you really get to play with structure and form and it's really cool, but sometimes you just got to go with the flow.
[0:08:18] HT: I love it. I definitely say my style is a lot more – my intention with my poetry is by the end, I want the reader to understand the lengths of what I feel and to not necessarily pay attention to the words as much, but more the impact. I feel like, my poetry is a lot of more just the emotion, rather than the words and their structure, which is a free verse style. I definitely, I'd say in more concrete styles terms, I love alliteration. I'm a sucker for alliteration. I have just one poem, 25 More Mind Mutations, and it's like, every single word is an M. I'm such a sucker for it. It's so catchy. I love it. It's fun.
[0:09:02] SG: I definitely think there's so much more you can do with free verse, because I find that older poems are all about structure and having the specific form. I think now with poetry, it's becoming its own mind. I think it's beautiful what you can really be doing with poetry now. I think it's opening up a whole new world to poetry recently with how you can use line breaks and forms and alliteration and things like that. I just love all those kinds of things.
[0:09:31] SW: Yeah. I can totally relate to that, because one of my favorite poets, I love that her poetry doesn't have any rules. There's no real concrete rules around punctuation, for example. You guys do whatever you want, because everything's a stylistic choice, which is very fun. That's awesome. Having emceed the Slam Free or Fly poetry event at Exeter High School the past couple of years, I feel like, one of the things that I've learned is that delivery is really important. Saying your poem out loud can be a completely different experience than reading it. Do you both take opportunities, or have opportunities where you say your poetry out loud?
[0:10:11] SG: I usually awkwardly whisper to myself as I'm writing my poetry. I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Just making sure it sounds good. The alliteration. You got to make sure it's on point, that I'm really saying the consonants and things like that. I think the line breaks, especially is where it comes to play where like, does this sound weird if I leave this off? It really depends. I think slam poetry is very cool with the way that it doesn't even have to be a very detailed poem. The way you just produce it is just magical and you're just impacted by just hearing their voice.
[0:10:44] LHL: Really cool.
[0:10:45] HT: Yeah. I'd say, when I read a poem, I run immediately to my English teacher/best friend and read it aloud to her to talk it through and hear it out loud. I find that really helpful. I also find it a lot more impactful, because I feel like, a lot of times someone will read one of my poems and be like, “Oh, that's really good.” Then when I say it, they're like, “Wow, I didn't realize.” Because they're very personal topics. I think without my own voice, it's hard to really understand that through just text itself. To the same degree, it's also doable.
[0:11:16] LHL: Then reading, or performing your work in front of people, or in front of a crowd, does stage fright, or any fears in that realm come to play ever?
[0:11:25] HT: I used to have a lot of severe anxiety. Then I got over it somehow. I don't know. Something happened and I now don't shut up. I think, I no longer have that element. I used to all the time. One time in sixth grade, I said a poem about jelly beans in front of my class and they laughed at me. I was so scarred, and I didn't get over it until halfway through high school. Now I'm able, I do open mic nights. I read several poems at those kinds of events. Two weekends ago, I read two poems at a 100 Thousand Poets for Change, which was down at the UU church in front of a bunch of strangers and I just had fun.
[0:12:08] LHL: That's really cool.
[0:12:08] SG: She turned 18. I'm still 17. I could be up there and I'll be like, I feel so confident in this. I know I'm a leader in this and whatever. I will still be like, my hands will start shaking and I'm like, it's not in my control. I could be confident and my body is telling me something completely different. The more you do it, the more you get comfortable with it, the more I'm like, as I'm going through my poem, I’m just like, “It's going to be over soon. It's going to be over soon.” As I also watching the audience, instead of just looking at a poem. Really observing them, you can see them nodding their heads, agreeing with what I'm saying. Being like, “Wow, this is really good.” I think that's really when your nerves start to calm down more.
[0:12:50] SW: Oh, that's so cool. Even though you're literally on the Hampshire Teen poet laureate, you still have a little bit of that imposter syndrome.
[0:12:57] SG: I definitely. Yeah.
[0:12:58] SW: So great. That never goes away, just so you know. Sorry.
[0:13:02] LHL: We had a past guest, who’s Trina Talks, who is a professional public speaker. Her dad gave her this advice that everyone in the crowd is rooting for you. I still think about that, because that felt so revolutionary in my brain that nobody's there to be like, “Got you. You suck.” I mean, unless you're at a comedy show, maybe. I don't know. In general, people don't want to be in an awkward situation. They want to be educated, or entertained, or moved, or something. We just got to harness that belief in the community.
[0:13:35] HT: I remember my first open mic night, I stuttered when I said the title and started laughing hysterically at the top of my lungs in front of all these people. It was a full minute of me just laughing. Then I tried to read my poem, but I couldn't stop laughing, because it was this nervous giggle, but it was also, I was terrified. Then someone in the crowd was like, “Just keep reading.” Then I read it through my giggles. I honestly think it made it 10 times better, because I was just hysterically choking on my own tears and laughter as I was reading this really depressing poem about –
[0:14:07] LHL: That could be part of the performance, for all they know.
[0:14:10] HT: Totally. Yeah. It was definitely on purpose, I swear, guys.
[0:14:13] SW: Poetry. No rules. You can do anything. It's a stylistic choice.
[0:14:17] HT: It was a part of it. There's brackets at the beginning, must read while laughing.
[0:14:25] SW: I love it. Shayla, you're at Exeter High School and Hazel, you're at Hanover High School. You are nowhere near each other geographically, but you have this connection. Were all the New Hampshire teen poet laureates everywhere around the state?
[0:14:38] SG: No.
[0:14:39] HT: They are all from Exeter, except for me.
[0:14:42] SG: Specifically, we're the only two public school students. Sadly, most of the students come from PEA, which I think we got to represent. We got to represent. That's what I'm saying.
[0:14:51] HT: Wait, I thought you were from —
[0:14:54] SG: Phillips Exeter Academy? From Exeter High School. See?
[0:14:57] HT: Yeah. Respect.
[0:14:59] SW: Interesting.
[0:15:00] SG: Yeah. We're definitely trying to show –
[0:15:01] SW: I’m glad you didn't invite any of those PEA kids tonight.
[0:15:06] SG: No, we don't mean that. We're definitely trying to broaden our scope, because there's so many different places in New Hampshire. There's so many places that we could be really advocating for poetry that isn't just in a private institution that has poetry classes. I don't have a poetry class. I think it's really important to be looking at those kinds of people that don't have those opportunities.
[0:15:27] SW: Yes. Oh, my gosh. I totally agree. I went to a high school that does – I mean, at least when I was there, I didn't take any poetry classes. There might have been a section in one of my English classes. That's interesting. This is a great time to ask this question while you're on the spot. I also noticed that all of the New Hampshire teen poet laureate team are all women.
[0:15:48] HT: We have a new member and he's a boy.
[0:15:50] LHL: Yay.
[0:15:51] HT: You know what? As of last week, we have one guy. Your token male. He's there. I swear.
[0:15:56] SW: I was looking at the website and I was like, I know for a fact that boys do poetry, so where are they?
[0:16:02] SG: That's my question. We try and reach out and our advisor was like, “Where are the guys? I can't be the only one here.” Because our advisor is a man.
[0:16:12] SW: I noticed that, too.
[0:16:14] LHL: Is there a theory or a thought on why that might be?
[0:16:16] SG: I have no idea. There were many different male poets that were a part of the group, but I think as we just keep growing. Yeah.
[0:16:25] HT: I also think there's – I'm assuming there's a – I feel more, like I feel that there's a stigma around men who write poetry. The more vulnerable you are, the less stereotypical manly you are. I feel like, it's not as socially acceptable for a man to write poetry, to be in touch with his feelings, and to have that expression and art form. I think that to a degree is going to affect how many male poets there are in general, and male poets who are willing to share their work so publicly.
[0:16:53] SW: Right. Right. Yeah, that's really interesting. Actually, that lines up really well with one of the takeaways that I had from the Slam Free and Fly poetry event is that the poetry that was – there was plenty of boys presenting their poetry, but the poetry that was coming from them was more likely to be funny. I feel like, that's such a high school boy thing like, “Sure, I'll do my poem and I'll recite it at the Slam Free and Fly thing, but it's going to be a comedy poet.”
[0:17:19] SG: It still comes out great. Me and my friends still think about The Haircut.
[0:17:23] LHL: The haircut?
[0:17:25] SG: All the time. All the time. I still go back and listen to it.
[0:17:30] SW: Hilarious.
[0:17:31] LHL: That was with two people involved, right?
[0:17:32] SG: Yup.
[0:17:33] LHL: That actually goes really nice into my next question about, is there room for collaboration in poetry? Do you collaborate with others within writing, or in other realms of how you create?
[0:17:44] SG: Yes. We've definitely done workshops for when we do poetry events as well. When we host poetry events, introducing us to the group of Mr. Pappas's friends and things like that. That's what we call them, or what I call him.
[0:17:57] HT: I'm scared to call him anything else. My first meeting ever, I was like, “Mr. Pappas’ mimes.” Like, “Oh, I kept calling him Jimmy. Is that weird? Did I do something wrong?” That's Mr. Pappas.
[0:18:07] SG: Yeah. Strictly. Yes. We workshop our poems before events and stuff like that to hear everyone else's voices. I think it's a great place to build our critical analysis skills and being able to communicate with others and be able to encourage others and their ideas of expressing something that may be not normal to them, like a different structure or whatever and being able to work through that process.
[0:18:33] HT: There is one time where someone shared a poem and then the group suggested that she entirely switch it around, like start the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning thing. Then, also, that you could read it in both directions and still have the same impact. I think that thing, it's very much challenging someone to write it entirely differently, except still have that same impact. I think, we collaborate in that way that we can write two entirely different, yet very much the same poems, but one on your own and one with feedback.
[0:19:07] SW: That's really cool.
[0:19:10] LHL: Yeah. I can almost see a visual artistic representation of interpreting a poem one way or the other. It makes me wonder, have you ever collaborated with another creative of a different discipline, like a painter? You work off their work, and they work off yours. Anything like that?
[0:19:24] SG: We have talked about Mr. Pappas. He brought up a friend of his that was the just photography and it's really cool photography. I don't remember her name off the top of my head, but it's like, an astronaut in these really cool settings and it costs a lot to do.
[0:19:38] SW: I totally know who that is.
[0:19:40] LHL: We know who that is.
[0:19:41] SW: That's Karen Jerzyk.
[0:19:42] SG: That sounds right. Yeah. We looked at her images and he was like, “We should totally do writing prompts off of this and create poems about this and stuff like that.” We definitely base things off of other people, but not as often. It's mostly about each other. And trying to work with each other's different styles and really communicate and challenge ourselves.
[0:19:59] SW: Yeah. That's really cool. I'm thinking of a lot of things. But there's a name for that. Do you know what it's called? Like, an aphrastic or something? Because there's been whole shows, like a mosaic art collective, and Manchester did one where it was painters, or visual artists, and poets get together and you make a poem based off of this piece and then put them together in this show, or in this exhibition.
[0:20:27] SG: My grandma is an artist. We used to, during COVID when I couldn't go to my writers camp at UNH, we would first write a poem each week about a different theme, or whatever we wanted to do. Then because she was a painter, we would go down in her basement and we would paint our poem afterwards. I still have a bunch of mine, but it was really cool experience to be able to dabble in a different art form at the same time and really express it in two different ways.
[0:20:55] SW: That is so cool.
[0:20:56] SG: Yeah, that is amazing.
[0:20:58] SW: Creative Guts has a call for art out now.
[0:21:00] LHL: Yup. Art and writing.
[0:21:02] SW: Art and writing, if you both want to submit poems to our zine, we'll send you the info. The theme is love letter to a place.
[0:21:10] HT: I like that. Now I'm going to be thinking the whole entire time. No, I'm like, I am not going to be able to focus.
[0:21:19] LHL: We actually thought of that after interviewing a poet, I believe. Then we were like, “Wouldn't that be a great thing for a zine?” We kept it in our back pocket till just now.
[0:21:27] SW: Yeah. We've had this love letter to a place thing floating around in our brains for a while. Yeah. It's really good.
[0:21:32] LHL: Truly, we've gotten a mix of poetry and prose and visual arts so far. Hopefully, there's a good mix of that.
[0:21:39] SW: Yeah. Yeah, it's extremely cool. I love this idea of pairing poetry and visual art together.
[0:21:44] SG: My school has a literary magazine called Pen of Iron, and I've submitted a couple of times. It used to be on the staff, but then I couldn't make it anymore. But they do themes for fall, winter, and summer, and they match the photography with the essays and the poetry. I wrote a poem called You Are What You Eat, and they matched it with actually one of my really close friend’s paintings. We didn't even realize. She did a still art of fruit. They matched it and it was really well done. We didn't even realize till after.
[0:22:17] SW: That's a really awesome. It’s cool how there's opportunity there for either collaboration, or they can complement each other like that. That’s very cool. I love it.
[0:22:25] LHL: I know. It's amazing. Speaking of zines, you produce zines. Tell us about that. We'd love to hear more.
[0:22:31] SG: You want to start, Hazel?
[0:22:32] HT: Well, this is my first year, but from my understanding, we've produced three zines and they used to be called the Good Poetry Zine, but we decided to change the name to the NHTPL Literary Magazine to keep everything under the NHTPL domain. And so, that that's a more – we can get more outreach with just one name. Yeah. I think that we try and take poems from all New Hampshire teenagers. We also made our work, or at least try to. Yeah.
[0:23:05] SG: Hazel's our website designer.
[0:23:06] HT: Yeah. It's whatever. It's just I'm like, it's whatever. You could say, I'm basically a computer science major, it's whatever.
[0:23:13] SW: You're so talented.
[0:23:15] HT: I got several emails being like, “Hey, is the website almost done?” I was like, “Okay, it's almost done.”
[0:23:21] SG: This week.
[0:23:22] HT: Yeah, this week. I'm going three – Nobody was good because it made me finish it. I was like, “Yeah, almost done.” But half the people hadn't sent me their photos. I was like, “Guys, I can't finish it until you do this.” Then also, I could not figure out for the life of me how to get rid of the footer, so I just had a foot of space. It's a whole thing. It was a whole thing.
[0:23:41] LHL: I see that it's a Wix website and I actually helped design Wix websites for our clients. If you ever need a pointer, feel free to email me.
[0:23:47] HT: I will follow up on that, because when I tell you I wanted to throw my computer, I complained to my mom so much. I was like, I would literally – I think I'd punch my screen once. I was so upset. Not that I have anger issues, but I just feel like, Wix brings out the worst. No diss to Wix. They actually are very helpful.
[0:24:05] SW: This episode of Creative Guts is sponsored by Wix.
[0:24:08] LHL: They should be for the amount of times I've mentioned them probably, but yeah.
[0:24:12] HT: I did get sucked into the whole buy the domain, but then you have to connect your domain to the website for a yearly subscription. I have this domain for my school's book club website, but no way to connect it. I got so upset. I think I cried. I called my mom and I was like, “Mom, you're joking. I just spent $27 on this domain and I can't even connect it.”
[0:24:32] SW: You could say I'm gullible, but a tough week for Hazel.
[0:24:35] HT: I'm just feeling really emotional right now.
[0:24:37] SW: You should write a poem about it.
[0:24:38] HT: I will. I will on the car ride home. I'll be like, “Siri, write this down.” Oh, I probably just called her up. That's my bad.
[0:24:45] LHL: Oh, yeah. This is probably a dumb question, but are you a non-profit?
[0:24:50] HT: We are in the process of becoming a non-profit.
[0:24:53] LHL: Because then, eventually, you can get funds to pay for Wix hosting and then you can connect your domain when you have a budget and people donate to pay for it, because it's 200 a year for your all that stuff.
[0:25:03] HT: I know. I know. It's 200, plus the fees, plus Google indexing and all this stuff.
[0:25:08] SG: Plus, if you want the special stuff.
[0:25:10] HT: Yeah. If you want the animation.
[0:25:14] LHL: But it sounds like, you're on the road to –
[0:25:15] HT: Yeah, we are. We're applying right now.
[0:25:17] SG: Yes. We have a lot of things going through right now to really make our group.
[0:25:20] SW: That's awesome. I love it. I love it. You do one zine per year. Is that the speed right now?
[0:25:27] HT: Yeah. Then we do newsletters, our Teen Tidbits a little more regularly.
[0:25:32] SW: How do I sign up for that? I want Teen Tidbits.
[0:25:34] HT: Actually, if you go on to our website that I designed, you can go and enter. There should be a place where it says like, enter, join our email list. If you put your email in there, we will go and every week, we’ll take the emails added there and put you on our list.
[0:25:49] SG: Our Teen Tidbits is an email that gets sent out to everyone that wants to be on the email list. It basically has different props that we have for people, different publication areas and what they're looking for right now. Then obviously, things that we are doing that they could be involved in. Soon, we're going to write out our teen tidbits about how we recently interviewed Jennifer Militello, our New Hampshire Poet Laureate. It would be really cool.
[0:26:15] LHL: It's amazing. You folks should do the New Hampshire Maker Fest alongside us. Then you can reach a lot of youngsters. There are teens that go to it as well. I feel like, we've gotten a lot more listeners who our parents from attending events like that.
[0:26:28] HT: Is that in the spring?
[0:26:30] LHL: Yes. It's in June. It's usually around the first weekend, in June and over. It's been really, really fun. I mean, there's lots of little kids, but get them interested in poetry when they're young and then who knows?
[0:26:40] SG: It's from nine through 12.
[0:26:42] LHL: That's awesome.
[0:26:43] SG: For grades.
[0:26:44] LHL: That is so cool.
[0:26:44] SW: It's very cool.
[0:26:46] LHL: I was going to say that whenever you have calls, if you want to send them to us, we can share them on our stuff. When we have our youth zine call, I'm already going to share it with you, so you can spread it, spread the word among all of you youngsters, so that we can –
[0:26:59] SG: This is perfect. Yeah.
[0:27:01] HT: Yeah, it sounds great.
[0:27:02] SW: Yeah. What's the strategy to get poetry for the zines and for Teen Tidbits? How do you connect with all these other teens?
[0:27:10] SG: What we have been starting to do is write out emails to teachers at schools, instead of going through principals. We actually specifically look on their websites for English teachers who may be a part of groups, clubs that do writing and things like that. We will specifically email them asking, “Hey, we would love to have some members that love writing and poetry on here. If they're interested in things like that. It's completely remote.” We would do things like that. Of course, what our most main population is people that we know, people that we know loves poetry around us, so that's how there's a lot of PEA students. Yeah, that's how these grow.
[0:27:47] HT: My English coordinator at my high school is the one who sent me the email suggesting it. That's how I applied and that's how I got involved, and that's how you got someone from all the way up in Hanover. But she just gave me the thing, and I was like, “Okay.” I filled up the application and here I am. It definitely works in that sense. We're trying to get people to respond. They don't want to respond. I'm like, “Please.”
[0:28:15] SW: It's hard. It's hard to get people to do stuff.
[0:28:17] HT: We're also, we're making flyers and I'm developing a theme for our upcoming zine, so that we can put flyers around and then also, give it to libraries, school libraries, put it on our Instagram, put it on our website, kind of thing. Just try and reach out. Then, tell all your friends. Tell all your friends.
[0:28:37] LHL: You listener.
[0:28:39] HT: Yeah, you listener.
[0:28:40] LHL: There's a New Hampshire scholastic for visual arts. Isn't there one for writing as well?
[0:28:46] SG: Yes. There is some poetry.
[0:28:47] LHL: Have you connected with those folks at all? Because that might be a good feeder to get more.
[0:28:52] SW: I know. We should talk to Becky later about ideas, because she'll –
[0:28:55] SG: See, they've been really wanting a lot more students in public high schools instead, because almost every single one of them comes from PEA. I mean, me and you.
[0:29:07] HT: Yeah. Here we are. Here we are. The token public school kids.
[0:29:12] SW: Public school kids have all the advantages.
[0:29:15] SG: Now, why you think we're here.
[0:29:16] SW: Yeah. Exactly.
[0:29:20] SG: Oh, my gosh.
[0:29:22] SW: Are your zines gird, or is it everybody gets in that applies?
[0:29:27] HT: Ooh. We take submissions and then we might make a comment or two and send it back, so they can edit one or two things. We take most things. But if it's inappropriate, or something else, but we take most of what we get.
[0:29:40] SG: Mostly, we take as many submissions as we can.
[0:29:43] LHL: That’s wonderful.
[0:29:444] SW: Do you ever weirdly have adults submitting and you're like, “Oh, what is this?” Do you verify age?
[0:29:49] SG: I don't think we've ever had an actual adult submit. We're like, “Hey, I just want to join in.”
[0:29:54] SW: We for the first time ever with our youth zine had a grown up submit and we were like, “This is weird.”
[0:29:58] HT: like, do you not know what teen means? I'm not understanding. Yeah.
[0:30:03] SG: A child at heart.
[0:30:05] LHL: Some artists, I think they just see call for art and they're like, “Yeah. It’s a new other opportunity.” But, yeah. They can do to the next one. Love letter to a place, which may or may not be open when this comes out. I don’t know. We try to do a couple of zines a year. We always do a youth zine in the summer, and then we typically do one associated with extra high school in the spring. Occasionally, we do an open adult spring one and then an open adult fall one. It's exciting.
[0:30:31] SW: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
[0:30:34] LHL: What are some of the challenges that you face with your creativity and your – either your own writing process or the organization that you're involved in? Writer’s block. Obviously, getting other people involved, those types of things.
[0:30:47] SG: There was definitely – you weren't here for this, but last year there were definitely a lot of challenges, because most students were juniors and that's your hardest year in high school. It was a big challenge of getting people to attend to the meetings, to let people know that you're not coming or not. There was one moment we had – we were at the UNH Poetry Festival and we were supposed to have our own little get together during the festival and talk about our poetry and advocacy for teenagers, but in the very, very last moment almost all of them couldn't make it, because either they were sick, they didn't have cars, they didn't whatever. I was the only one that attended. I had 30 minutes, a 30-minute block that I had to try and fill up. I immediately was emailing Mrs. Pearson, Mr. Magliosi, and like, “Oh, my God. I have no idea what I'm about to do. I have no idea. What am I supposed to talk about?”
They basically coached me through it, because they're my favorite people ever. I just gathered some poems that I inspired by and I read one of my poems that was in the anthology that was put out. Thankfully, there was another person there that also spoke, so I only had to speak for 15 minutes. But it was very stressful and I think we learned from that very well, because everyone is very much active now in this year, I think. We've definitely set some ground rules and we're growing as a group.
[0:32:15] SW: That's definitely a real challenge. Yeah. I'm curious if there is one, what the relationship is between the New Hampshire Teen Poets Laureate and the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Do you work with them at all?
[0:32:30] SG: They're like, we kind of do. We're definitely separate, but we're under the level of the society.
[0:32:37] SW: Yeah. Okay, that's cool. I’ve learned a lot preparing for this episode and to this conversation. I had never heard of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire before this.
[0:32:48] HT: I don't think I have ether, if I'm being completely honest. I'm like, yeah, totally, we work so well. Yeah. No idea. Yeah. They're great.
[0:32:58] SW: I don't think there's any mention of you on their website. And so, I was trying to figure out why that is.
[0:33:04] SG: It might be the Arts Council.
[0:33:06] HT: I think it's the Arts Council. I don't know. It's in our Instagram. Is it endorsed, or is it –
[0:33:10] SG: We're just associated with the group.
[0:33:11] HT: Yes, exactly.
[0:33:13] SG: I think it's the New Hampshire Arts and Council.
[0:33:16] SW: I think that's true. The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. I'm going to say something to Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Hey, if you're listening.
[0:33:22] HT: I know. I'm like, also, we're not saying we're partners. Don't sue us, please.
[0:33:32] SW: Because I think the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, they're the people who decide who the Poet Laureate is, right?
[0:33:36] SG: We've had some disagreements with that in the past, because what they really want, like how New Hampshire has their New Hampshire Poet Laureate, that one person. How Portsmouth has their one person and such things like that. We really want to advocate for as a group, because we don't want to have just one person and be able to really collaborate with other teenagers who want a voice. We don't want to stop that from happening. I think we pushed away from that and we're creating our own team, because of that, because we want to have that community. We want to have that area for teens to really embrace their creativity.
[0:34:13] SW: I love that.
[0:34:13] HT: I also think when it comes to Laureates in general and being nominated and stuff, it's a lot about accessibility and who has the accessibility to publish work, to send in their work. I think that having more people be able to just join gives a lot of opportunity to those people and they just have more opportunity when they become one and stuff like that. I think it helps create accessibility.
[0:34:38] LHL: I think that's so important and amazing. I applaud that you young folks are really cognizant and mindful of that, and that some of these older organizations could maybe take a page from your poetry book.
[0:34:51] SW: Yup. I agree.
[0:34:52] SG: Gen Z. Yeah.
[0:34:56] SW: I’m so sorry. We're not trying to throw older people and the New Hampshire Poetry Society under the bus.
[0:35:01] HT: You're great. Sorry.
[0:35:03] SG: I just think it's great to have new perspectives and new voices, and definitely from a newer generation, I think there's so much to learn from both, all generations and I think we can learn off of each other.
[0:35:14] LHL: Absolutely. Absolutely. This is a little less poetry-focused, but just mentioning your generation. How y'all doing?
[0:35:24] SG: I am frustrated.
[0:35:25] LHL: Yeah. We can talk about that for a minute.
[0:35:28] SG: Hazel's 18, I'm 17, and I will not be 18 in November. I'm very frustrated about how – I mean, talking about embracing your voice. I feel like, I don't really – It's hard to show what you can or cannot do, and things like that. I work as a library page at my library. Even my boss and how we work there, we're not trying to show our politics. We're not trying to show things like that, because we're trying to include everyone and everything like that. It's very frustrating at times for sure. But it's rough out there. I'll say that.
[0:36:03] HT: Yeah. I actually the other day was talking to these three college students just randomly. I don't even remember how when they were talking about the same old story of like, I'm neither – I don't like either politician. I was like, “What?” I was like, “Okay, but you have to see. You have to look at the policy. You have to look at –” They were like, “Oh, I care about policy more than about social aspects.” I'm like, it's beyond social aspects about human rights, and it's not this black and white thing, and you can't just say neither. There's no none of the above, in my opinion. But it's always a general population of people that don't really understand the value of votes, that not everyone has always had a vote, and that there were civil rights movements and the women's marches to make sure that we could secure this right to vote and the people who are like, “I don't want to vote. I don't want to vote for either person,” they aren't taking into consideration how people had to put their lives on the line just for this right and how valuable that is.
[0:37:06] SG: In 2017, when the women's march was happening and all that, my mom was like, “We're taking this, this advantage and we're going to Washington, DC.” We are in Boston.
[0:37:15] SW: Cool.
[0:37:15] SG: We went all the way to Washington, DC, and we did the whole – As a kid, I was like, “Oh, my God. This is a lot of people.” We went on the Metro and everyone was singing Lean On Me and everyone had their hats, and it was such an amazing feel. Then I recently went back to Washington, DC for college visits and it felt so weird because so much has happened in that time. I'm like, I have so many thoughts and I'm like, “Oh, my gosh.”
[0:37:41] SW: To see the world change so quickly in such a short amount of time in just the short lives that you've lived so far. There are certain people that have seen these big moments in pockets in history over this huge lifetime, but they're just like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. But I feel it's so condensed now that Gen Z and Millennials, we're seeing so much in such a short span that it's exhausting. Let me make sure I fill out my time sheet and file these reports while there's people just stuck in Florida not able to get out right now. There's just so much that's – Not to be a downer section of a podcast, but on a positive note, Hazel, this is potentially an insanely cool election that will be your first time voting.
[0:38:25] HT: When I realized I could vote in the next election, I gloated to all my friends. I was like, “Well, yeah. I can vote. I can vote in the next election.” I was so proud of it, because after the 2016 election, I was just like, “What the actual –” I was just like, this is insane. And so, I have been counting down the days till this. I'm definitely a political science nerd. It's all my family talks about.
[0:38:49] LHL: That's really cool. I'll tell you, as an adult, it'll be a thing that you'll talk about. You'll be like, “My first election.” Because it comes up in my office sometimes. Everybody's like, “The first time I voted was for so and so.” Mine was for Obama. I voted in 2008.
[0:39:02] SG: My first time voting is going to be for my town meeting, because I'm trying to get my raise.
[0:39:09] LHL: Good for you.
[0:39:11] SW: It won't even be on the warrant. You'll just be like, a raise for the library page.
[0:39:16] SG: Unfortunately, we're in SB1 town. We will be in person and it'll be eight hours.
[0:39:21] SW: That's rough. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Wait, where do you live?
[0:39:25] SG: Brentwood.
[0:39:27] SW: Oh. Cool.
[0:39:28] SG: Some interesting places there.
[0:39:29] HT: Red Peer Saturday.
[0:39:34] LHL: If you haven't heard of it, you should check out the podcast Youth in the Booth. It is Owen –
[0:39:38] SW: Simões.
[0:39:39] LHL: Thank you. I just saw him too, who's just turned 18, who is going to be able to vote. He's been interviewing politicians, young voters, staffers, all these different folks that are involved in politics in a bipartisan attempt to discuss politics and just what it's like to have the right, the privilege to vote. It's pretty great. We interviewed him on our podcast, because he's also a furniture flipper and was on Good Morning America at the age of 10.
[0:40:07] HT: What?
[0:40:09] LHL: Yeah, I know.
[0:40:10] HT: Oh, my gosh. Quite the resume right there.
[0:40:12] LHL: Absolute rock star, and just a very young leader. Amazing change maker. As young people who are obviously advocates and care about these kinds of things, another New Hampshire creative who's doing a podcast about voting and all that stuff.
[0:40:26] HT: Pretty cool.
[0:40:27] LHL: Documenting his journey. Now it's time for rapid fire questions.
[0:40:32] SW: What other artists, probably a poet, maybe not though, has influenced you the most?
[0:40:37] HT: Ocean Vuong.
[0:40:38] SG: Taylor Swift.
[0:40:41] SW: Oh, my God. I love it.
[0:40:42] HT: My answer was too serious now. Right. Not that your answer isn’t serious. It's a very valid artist.
[0:40:48] LHL: Where is your favorite place to write?
[0:40:50] SG: Probably, my room.
[0:40:52] HT: Probably during class when I don't want to pay attention and I can't concentrate.
[0:40:56] SW: Oh, I love that.
[0:40:58] SW: Yeah. I’m literally on my notes app just in the middle of class.
[0:41:01] SW: Your math. What's that?
[0:41:02] HT: I know. I'm like, I'm going to write a poem about a boy from last period. Thank you very much.
[0:41:07] SG: 1 a.m., when I randomly wake up and I need to put in my notes app.
[0:41:10] HT: When you see a rubber ducky in a vending machine, and as you're walking, you're like, rubber ducky and a vending machine. My dog threw up in my room yesterday. Then it's just there.
[0:41:18] SW: Oh, yeah. Okay, good question, actually. This is not on our list. Where's your favorite place to write, but physically? Is it a notebook? Is it your phone?
[0:41:27] HT: My notes app.
[0:41:28] SW: Okay.
[0:41:29] SG: I think I spend a lot of time on my notes app, or on a notebook that I have that's just – But I don't have it on me as much.
[0:41:35] HT: Yeah, it's so accessible. It's also like, I make so many spelling errors and I want to change everything immediately.
[0:41:41] SG: Real, tells me.
[0:41:43] HT: Yeah. It's like, babes that's not how you spell that. I'm like, “Okay, okay.” They're like, actually, that doesn't rhyme, because that's not how you spell that. I'm like, okay.
[0:41:51] SW: I've definitely written lyrics while driving and I'll have to do the audio voice –
[0:41:56] LHL: Me too.
[0:41:56] HT: Then I'm like, why are you putting periods in there? This is free verse. What is your problem? Read the room.
[0:42:03] LHL: It’s a disaster, but at least you have the idea down.
[0:42:06] SW: It can trigger the memory of it. What's your favorite color?
[0:42:09] SG: Dark purple.
[0:42:11] HT: Dark green.
[0:42:12] SW: Interesting. Okay.
[0:42:13] HT: Good phone colors.
[0:42:14] SW: What's your favorite scent?
[0:42:15] SG: I love lavender cashmere.
[0:42:18] HT: I like spring rain.
[0:42:19] LHL: This is so exciting having two people.
[0:42:21] HT: Yeah. The contrast is crazy. Yeah.
[0:42:27] LHL: What's your favorite sound?
[0:42:27] SG: Okay, well, I love the sound of just basic rain pounding on the roof.
[0:42:31] HT: Okay, me too. What way to steal the – Me too.
[0:42:34] SG: This is a competition.
[0:42:35] HT: Yeah, yeah. I actually like it going on puddles. If that's more poetic, I get five points. Thank you.
[0:42:41] LHL: We need a buzzer, Sarah.
[0:42:45] SW: I do feel like, both of your rapid-fire answers so far have been poetic.
[0:42:49] HT: Of course. I mean, token poets right here.
[0:42:51] SW: I'm not going to say, purple. Or not lavender, lavender cashmere. Dark purple. Yeah.
[0:43:00] HT: Spring rain. Not just rain. It's got to be the spring. The spring bucket waterfall rain. It's my favorite scent right there.
[0:43:07] LHL: What's your favorite texture to touch?
[0:43:08] HT: Probably something fluffy and soft, I'd say. I don't know. Oh, no. You know that slime that has those popping beads in them. I love it. When I was in third grade, I literally could not keep my hands off of it. It's a problem. My mom got very mad.
[0:43:24] SG: Okay, well, specifically, specific types of keyboards. I feel like, they can be so satisfying to type on.
[0:43:31] LHL: The sound of those are really great, too. You can go down TikTok. They just have people typing on different boards.
[0:43:35] SG: I have a typewriter that doesn't work, but I just love –
[0:43:39] HT: Yeah, you just tap it. No, but it's always that one person in the library next to you who's pounding their freaking keyboard. I'm just like, “Why is it so loud?”
[0:43:47] SW: That's me. I'm so sorry. I didn't know this about myself, but I have now worked in two different workplaces, where people have commented on the noise.
[0:43:55] HT: You know you have a problem when they comment when two different people comment.
[0:43:59] SW: The first time I'm like, “Oh, she's just being silly.” But the second time, I'm like, “Oh, this is a pattern.”
[0:44:09] LHL: The most inspiring location you've traveled to?
[0:44:11] SG: Iceland.
[0:44:13] HT: Me too.
[0:44:14] SG: The best place I have ever been.
[0:44:16] LHL: I got married there.
[0:44:18] SG: You did? Oh, my God.
[0:44:20] LHL: Yeah, it was amazing.
[0:44:21] SG: Now it's going to be my dream.
[0:44:23] HT: I'd say, in the mountains of Greece. I went deep into the mountains into, yeah, but I didn't go to the islands, like a basic – No offense to those who go to the islands. I went to the political edgy side. You could say, I'm the main character, whatever. Basically, it's all about me. But I went to Athens and then I went to inland Greece in the mountains, where they have cave monasteries. So inspiring. Actually, I had a severe panic attack and wrote one of my first poems that was actually decent.
[0:44:53] SW: Wow. I would 1000% watch a movie about an angsty poet who goes to Greece and travels to write poetry.
[0:45:03] HT: Then my crazy teacher is just like, “What is going on?” It's like a dysfunctional group of teenagers together. Yeah, it was actually a school trip.
[0:45:12] SG: Mine was a school trip, too.
[0:45:12] HT: Oh, my God.
[0:45:13] SG: I went with my English teacher, and so I wrote my poetry collection while I was in Iceland.
[0:45:19] LHL: What the hell?
[0:45:20] HT: Yeah, what are these public schools? It's like, we're going to Iceland and Greece? It's fine.
[0:45:24] SW: When I was in school, I went to Boston once.
[0:45:28] SG: Okay, field trip.
[0:45:29] HT: Okay, field trip. Was it overnight?
[0:45:33] SW: No. Wow, you two are out of control. What is the last new thing you've learned?
[0:45:43] HT: Probably how to make a vector in physics. Eew.
[0:45:46] SW: Last question here, clinter question. If you could go back in time to, I don't know, not that long ago, because you're pretty young still, what advice would you give your younger self?
[0:45:56] SG: I would say, believe in yourself. You have so much to become. I would probably be my elementary school kid.
[0:46:04] HT: Yeah. I'd probably tell myself everything happens for a reason. Even if you make mistakes, you're going to come out on the other side of it. I probably wouldn't tell myself to change any of my actions, because I am who I am because of them. They made me into the person I am, who I'm pretty proud of. Real.
[0:46:21] LHL: That's excellent.
[0:46:22] SW: So beautiful.
[0:46:23] LHL: It has been an absolute blast to chat with you both. Thank you for coming on the Creative Guts Podcast. It's been the best episode ever.
[0:46:31] HT: Yeah, that's us for you. That's us for you. It's like, whatever. I'm not surprised.
[0:46:34] SW: We're really looking forward to interviewing you again in 10 or so years to talk about, I don't know, whatever poetry thing you've done.
[0:46:40] HT: My poetry is terrible back then. I don't know what I was doing.
[0:46:44] SG: It's just us reacting to ourselves.
[0:46:46] HT: Like, we're listening, we're playing back and we’re like, “What was I doing?” I was like, that's so embarrassing, Hazel. Oh, my gosh.
[0:46:53] LHL: Great job.
[0:46:54] SW: I love it.
[0:46:55] LHL: Thank you again for being on the Creative Guts Podcast. It's been a delight to talk to you. With that –
[0:47:00] EVERYONE: Show us your creative guts.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:47:07] LHL: Another huge thank you to Shayla and Hazel for joining us on Creative Guts.
[0:47:12] SW: Wow. That was such a fun episode.
[0:47:14] LHL: I'm beaming with just joy after talking to those two.
[0:47:18] SW: Truly. I have this envy that I was not a teen poet laureate.
[0:47:22] LHL: Yeah. I don't know if it was a thing back – way back when I was a youngster. If there was, I certainly didn't know about it. It's just amazing how together they are. I'm sure they feel like youngsters in the world. To me, they just seem wise beyond their years with what they're accomplishing already.
[0:47:42] SW: Absolutely. It was one of those episodes that sometimes we go into episodes and we know a lot about our guest, or their medium, or their organization. This was one where we really didn't know that much about the teen poet laureates and how that works, and it was really, really cool.
[0:48:00] LHL: They're just so passionate about what they do. They're passionate about changing the world in many different ways, a lot of different facets, and harnessing their creativity and the creativity and others through writing is just top tier. I love it. I applaud them so, so much.
[0:48:16] SW: Yes. Right at the beginning of the episode, they talked about advocating for teenagers and showing them what poetry can be all about and making poetry fun. That's really fantastic. We didn't talk about this during the show, but the mission of the New Hampshire teen poet laureate team is to maintain the accessibility of poetry for all New Hampshire teens and to spread the power of writing, which is one, a great mission statement, but two, also, they're killing it.
[0:48:43] LHL: Yes. Yeah, they really are.
[0:48:45] SW: They're doing such a great job.
[0:48:46] LHL: Yeah. They're wonderful representatives and I'm really excited to dive into their work and the works of other youth in New Hampshire through their zines on their website.
[0:48:55] SW: Yup, absolutely. Laura and I, Creative Guts now has this experience of emceeing the Slam Free and Fly poetry event at Exeter High School and putting out the accompanying zine that goes along with that event every spring. We know how amazingly talented teen poets are. It's just really cool.
[0:49:17] LHL: It is. I don't think we can say enough about how much we really enjoyed this interview, so definitely go check out this organization and read some of the works from these amazing young creatives.
[0:49:29] SW: Yes. If you want to check out the New Hampshire teen poets, you can find them on Instagram. Their handle is @NHteenpoets. They also have a website. But we'll link to that in the episode description. As always, you can find those links and more in the episode description. They'll also be on our website and on our social media. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn by searching for Creative Guts Podcast.
[0:49:53] LHL: This episode is sponsored in part by the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts. Thank you to our friends in Rochester for their support of the show.
[0:50:01] SW: A big thank you as always, to Art Up Front Street for providing a space where Creative Guts can record. We're currently surrounded by the Patina and Gold exhibition, which is a really beautiful one. Always an inspiring place to be.
[0:50:13] LHL: Yes. If you love listening and want to support Creative Guts, you can make a donation, leave us a review, interact with our content on social media, purchase some merch, whatever you're able to do, we appreciate you.
[0:50:24] SW: Thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Creative Guts.
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