Incoming junior Delilah Brumer was recently named a finalist for the Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate. 

The L.A. Youth Poet Laureate is a program that’s run by the Los Angeles Public Library and it chooses a young poet who essentially gets to represent the L.A. program for a year. The poet will be given opportunities to perform their poems and compete to become the National Youth Poet Laureate. In order to be picked as a finalist, the poets had to submit an application with videos of them performing their poems and a portfolio of their work. And this year, Brumer was among the 15 finalists chosen. The L.A. Youth Poet Laureate ceremony will be live-streamed on Saturday June 19 starting at 2 p.m.

“When I found out I was picked I screamed,” Brumer said. “I ran into my mom’s room and we screamed and hugged and it was really awesome.”

Brumer has been writing poetry since second grade when her school teacher assigned a poetry project. Since then, she has been a part of many different programs including Write Girl, which is a Los Angeles-based writing organization that focuses on mentoring teenage girls who have a passion for writing. Brumer has also won many different awards for her poetry, her biggest one being the Gold Key Award, which is the highest regional award that someone can get from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

“I’m never going to stop writing poetry but I don’t see it as a career for myself.” said Brumer, who served as a staff writer and social media editor for The Pearl Post this past school year. “But I do see journalism as a career and writing poetry has shown me that I want to write for the rest of my life. 

Brumer has been wanting to be chosen for the LA Youth Poet Laureate for a while now. She applied last year but wasn’t chosen and so being chosen this year was truly amazing. All Brumer can do now is wait until Saturday to find out if she won the competition. 

“I’m the most nervous I’ve ever felt in my life,” Brumer said. “I’m really happy I got chosen as a finalist and I want to win really, really bad.”