Meet the Winner of the 2025 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate Contest
Emma Paris (she/her) is a first-year student at Bennington College, where she’s studying Poetry and Ecology with a focus on environmental data interpretation for creative works. Her poetry has appeared in VTDigger, Zaum Magazine, the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast, the Northern New England Review, MORIA Literary Magazine, Harpur Palate, and more. She interned at Green Writers Press during the winter of 2025, helping edit and proof upcoming titles in poetry. Emma is the Youth Poet Laureate of Vermont for 2025. Keep up with her on instagram at @vt_youth_poet_laureate_2025
Emma Paris at Firefolk Arts | Photo: Tina Picz Photography
We’re proud to announce 2025 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate winner, Emma Paris, the second Youth Laureate of Vermont after Harmony Devoe. The National Youth Poet Laureate program celebrates youth poets who are committed to artistic excellence, civic engagement, and social impact. Paris is an active member in her community, organizing engagement through writing in her hometown of Putney and Bennington College. As an activist, Paris’s poetry explores the connections between science, feminism, and social justice.
In your submission for the Vermont Youth Poet Laureate competition, you wrote about the "trials and tribulations of girlhood in relation to feminine ancestry." Which feminine ancestral figures—whether personal, historical, or mythological—have most influenced your perspective and writing?
Writing in lineage has always been a strong focus of mine. I intertwine a lot of feminine archetypes and figures into my work, from Sirens or Daphne from Greek mythology, to historic figures like Sappho or Emily Dickinson, to my own feminine lineage with my mother and grandmother… I have a really close relationship with my mother. She’s been my biggest supporter since day one, as well as a fellow creative mind existing in the artistic space of multimedia meets landscape/place/geography. We both center on creating work that is embedded in place, whether that place is the physical landscape, or scientific research, or a bookmark in lineage.
As a poet with a keen interest in the environment, how do you think poetry can contribute to ecological understanding in ways that scientific writing alone cannot?
Poetry is about cultivating community, forming and maintaining connection–connections with each other, connections with the land, connections with the self–literally the act of writing is the connection of words on the page. My approach to environmental activism is very much the same. I work in wilderness education for kids, which means I’m blessed with getting to spend my time outside fostering a love of nature in young people. When children (and adults) get to grow up surrounded by nature, learning to love and respect natural functions/resources, establishing connections that will fasten the desire to protect this place we call home, we’re raising activists who will undoubtedly fight to preserve our essential ecosystems… I believe strongly that the rift or disconnection between artistic and scientific communities must be bridged. The isolation of creative writing and science has long been a degradation of our education systems. When we value artistic contributions and scientific contributions as polar opposites, we restrict ourselves to limited ways of thinking about the world and therefore decrease the impact of both. There are an infinite number of ways to convey information to others–functioning communities are built on finding new and better ways to communicate with each other. It is vital to me that I embed science in my writing as a student ecologist, a member of treasured communities, and a passionate advocate for environmental justice and connection.
In what ways has Vermont shaped your evolution as a poet?
It’s difficult to be an active poet in Vermont without knowing essentially all the major Vermont poets! It has been such a blessing to have grown up around talented poets like Bianca Stone, Verandah Porche, Rajnii Eddins, Modesto “Flako” Jimenez, Chard DeNiord, Shanta Lee, and more. They’ve helped shape the evolution of my work through workshops, mentoring, readings, projects, or just being active in the community. Vermont is a fantastic place to be a writer–there is such a strong creative presence here that provides a steady stream of inspiration and curiosity.
What advice would you share for other youth poets around Vermont who want to share their voice?
A lot of the advice that’s given to young writers is to write. Something that needs to be said more is to do. In addition to writing, you also need to be reading, and speaking, and listening, and participating. By this I mean: writing on your own can only get you so far. So do it, but also attend poetry events in your town, and listen to what others are excited about, and reach out to writers you know to ask for advice or a mentorship or just to recommend some books, and then read those books! You can learn so much about form and style from reading different authors…Find other writers to convey what you’re learning and what excites you. Having a group of writers together is a powerful thing, be it a class, mentorship, workshop, or book club, those conversations that arise together are important.
When individuals read your work, what do you hope they take away from reading and how do you hope it impacts them?
I’m interested in the art of subtlety. I’m one of those poets who wants you to struggle just a little bit. Not in a malicious way obviously, but I believe that rewarding or meaningful work arises out of the challenge of contemplation. Especially in a culture quickly losing critical thinking skills, and turning to AI to complete the task of thought formulation. But AI can’t interpret poetry. As much as it's been encroaching on our creative processes for the past couple years, our art remains somewhat untouchable. The poem is an experience, a labor of love, a collective of language, not a summary of individual reality. I hope readers can perceive the creative and scientific dimensions determined by the experience and let them open up new pathways of connection.
As this year’s Vermont Youth Poet Laureate, how do you want to utilize this title and how do you hope to further grow as a poet?
I’m super excited to formulate program and event ideas, and that general community portion of my responsibility. Poetry is about community, so how do we get people engaged? I’m interested in appealing to Vermonters of all ages, not just youth. Ecopoetics apply to everyone, so how can we use creativity to build/maintain our communities? Bringing people together is my goal, I want to share what I’ve been working on and hear what others have been working on. Creative people need to support and build each other up, we learn from each other. And it isn’t exclusive to self-describing writers, as I mentioned earlier–science is a huge part of my writing and education. Connecting folks with people in other fields, with other passions, opens up creative pathways in an interaction that mutually benefits all parties. Genuine connection and respect is where activism and social justice migrate from an individual level to a collective one.
Paris concluded with the striking quote from Audre Lorde, “Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”
