Top: Yex Diaz and Henry Mead. Abiba Biao Photo. Bottom: Diaz at the mic. Lucy Gellman Photo.
When Yexandra “Yex” Diaz stepped onto the stage outside ConnCAT, her presence was palpable from a mile away. I’m a hood mama, she read, and the whole parking lot turned to listen. Strict with a side of cool. Her words were a testimony. This ain’t quite gentle parenting, but it is rooted in compassion. This was a love letter to the Elm City, with a heart big enough to hold all of its young people. I’m a hood mama. More like a mother to the hood.
Diaz, a spoken word artist who brought fire and feeling to her performance, was crowned New Haven’s second poet laureate last Saturday, at the end of Kulturally LIT’s sixth annual literary festival. The event, held at the Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology (ConnCAT), invited poet laureate finalists to recite a poem to the crowd before revealing the winner at the end. Henry Mead will hold the youth poet laureate position, which Anna Capelle has held since 2024.
Finalists alongside Diaz included New Haven artist, activist and organizer Sun Queen, who is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter New Haven; New Haven Adult & Continuing Education teacher Silas Mullins, who is also a professor of English professor at Central Connecticut State University; and writer Jonah Craggett, a public speaker, poet and New Haven Artist Corps recipient who is the creative mind behind “The Haus of Black,” an original audio drama that premiered at NXTHVN earlier this year.
“I’m incredibly honored to step into this role and grateful for the opportunity to continue serving New Haven’s vibrant arts community,” Diaz said in a text message after Saturday’s event. “My ultimate goal as Poet Laureate is to elevate visibility both for poetry and for the city itself. Connecticut is known for its culture & tourism and New Haven is undeniably an arts hub.”
“Creating compelling, community rooted content that uplifts this truth is central to how I see my role as a steward of poetry,” she added.
Diaz succeeds inaugural city Poet Laureate Sharmont “Influence” Little, who has occupied the role since 2023 and formally ends his term on December 31. During her still-evolving career, she has competed and won multiple times as part of Verbal Slap, Connecticut’s slam poetry team, including at the 34th annual Southern Fried Poetry Slam earlier this year. When she’s not performing, she is the development manager at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
In the interest of full transparency, the Arts Paper is a program of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, but editorially independent from it.
While Diaz is an award-winning poet and fixture in the city’s spoken word scene, her biggest focus is nurturing New Haven’s youth, from her work as a doula and position as artistic director of The Word to her recent appointment to the city’s Youth Commission. The Word is a nonprofit literary arts program that creates a space for the city’s young people to write and perform poetry and spoken word.
“After leading the adult team to its first win, I’m excited to pour that same energy into supporting the youth team, building a legacy of excellence and opportunity,” she said. “I also hope to foster collaborations between poetry platforms that allow emerging artists to engage with seasoned veterans, strengthening the broader literary ecosystem that makes our city so unique.”
The New Haven Poet Laureate is a two-year term, first launched by Kulturally LIT Founder IfeMichelle Gardin and former Cultural Affairs Director Adriane Jefferson in 2023 (read more about that process here). While Jefferson now leads Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs, the City of New Haven has continued to support the position. During his term, Little has hopped on projects and city appearances that range from Mayor Justin Elicker’s 2024 Inauguration to a celebration of Hill Parents Association Co-Founder Fred Harris to Possible Futures’ now-annual birthday recognition of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton.
“It’s wonderful!” Gardin said in a phone call Thursday. “I feel like we should have been doing this for a while. As the inaugural poet laureate, Sharmont has done a wonderful job of showing what can happen in the position.”
This year, “I think we had strong candidates, all of them,” she added. “And I am glad I was not a judge. It had to be really difficult to make a decision and it was really close.”
This year, judges included educator and speaker Frank Brady, current Poet Laureate Sharmont “Influence” Little, Hartford Book Festival Founder and Enfield Poet Laureate Nzima Hutchings, City Deputy Cultural Affairs Director Kim Futrell, New Haven Festivals’ Myles-Amir Riley, and self-described recovering journalist Markeshia Ricks, communications manager at the Center for Inclusive Growth.
Shawn Douglas and Henry Mead. Abiba Biao Photos.
The festival also announced the city’s second youth poet laureate, now a program of the Yale Literary Magazine, The Word, and Kulturally LIT with assistance from Little. This year, contenders included Shawn Douglas Jr., a graduate of Achievement First Amistad High School and member of the city’s youth slam team, and Henry Mead, a student at Wilbur Cross High School and ACES Educational Center for the Arts (ECA).
Taking the mic as the sun made the parking lot glow, Douglas dazzled with a tight, lyrical poem that took America—and specifically, a kind of anti-Black racism that feels uniquely American—to task. Afterwards, Mead performed a poem about the violent and esoteric nature of humans.
The youth poet laureate term lasts for one year, meaning that the selection process will happen annually.
Lucy Gellman contributed reporting.