{"id":400744,"date":"2026-07-16T13:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400744\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:47:14","slug":"a-poly-high-poet-harnesses-raw-honest-and-vulnerable-truths-she-was-just-named-the-citys-youth-poet-laureate-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400744\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poly High poet harnesses \u2018raw, honest and vulnerable truths.\u2019 She was just named the city\u2019s Youth Poet Laureate. \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ajala Sen is a natural performer. The rising senior at Poly High School got her first taste of the stage when she played Tom Petty\u2019s \u201cFree Fallin\u2019\u201d at her third-grade talent show, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was exhilarating, and the audience loved it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Since then, she took up drums, began writing songs and poems and formed her own punk band, Sugar Skulls. She creates because she feels compelled to translate emotion and reactions to her world into language and music \u2014 and to share her creative work with an audience, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe owns the stage,\u201d said X\u00f3chi Salas, coordinator for the Long Beach Youth Poet Laureate program.<\/p>\n

In recognition of her poetry and performance, Sen was named the 2026 Youth Poet Laureate of Long Beach, an honor intended to help showcase and mentor the city\u2019s young artists. As Youth Poet Laureate, Sen receives a $1,500 scholarship and poetry training. She will also promote poetry through service, representing Long Beach youth at public events and helping organize workshops and panels for community members.<\/p>\n

Sen\u2019s work stood out because it \u201cuplifts a lot of raw, honest and vulnerable truths,\u201d Salas said, adding that Sen\u2019s ability to harness that, especially at such a young age, is a \u201cpowerful gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Ajala Sen was recently named the Long Beach Youth Poet Laureate in Long Beach on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/p>\n

Much of Sen\u2019s poetry centers on her home in Long Beach and the forces, people and events that shape the city, she said. She does not shy away from disparities between neighborhoods, federal immigration crackdowns and the school-to-prison pipeline, she said. Rather, she said she feels an obligation to bear witness and to share her observations.<\/p>\n

In January, Sen performed her poem, \u201cWho Built This?\u201d<\/a> for Poly High School\u2019s annual poetry slam contest. Her poem explores the dissonances within Los Angeles, \u201cA city built by Brown hands,\u201d filled with people who \u201cDo nothing when bullets go right through \/ The people that gave you this country,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Her work is personal. Sen\u2019s own father is an immigrant from Bengal, and her grandfather fled Punjab during the 1947 Partition of India, she said. (\u201cStepping off a plane or ship \/ Fresh from the South Pacific \/ Into the unknown \/ With nothing but their skin, bone and hope,\u201d she wrote of those who made her life possible in Southern California.)<\/p>\n

Sen had entered Poly\u2019s contest in the past and had taken a copy of her poem onstage in case she forgot it. But this time, she took the stage with her poem memorized, allowing her to feel \u201cit from inside rather than from the page,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her craft and delivery were suffused with music \u2014 evidence of her years of training, from her father teaching her guitar as a child, to her practice of Kathak, a form of classical dance from Northern India. And she approaches her poetry like she\u2019s performing music, using rhythm, dynamics, rhyme and rests for emphasis, she said. She pays attention to how the audience interacts, listening for applause but also silence.<\/p>\n

Even her movements evoke music and dance \u2014 she raises her hands as she speaks, stressing certain words and phrases. \u201cShe excels at bringing in body movement while also verbalizing,\u201d Salas said, a skill that \u201ccaptivated the audience,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ajala Sen, recently named the Long Beach Youth Poet Laureate, at the Dana Branch Library in Long Beach on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/p>\n

Sen took home first prize at the poetry slam and would go on to repeat that performance for the judges, who would name her Youth Poet Laureate.<\/p>\n

Many audience members have told Sen how much the poem meant to them, how deeply they were moved. And that is her ultimate goal, she said: to get people to feel, to build shared understanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoetry is community-based,\u201d she said. \u201cYou do it for a community. You do it with a community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ajala Sen is a natural performer. The rising senior at Poly High School got her first taste of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-400744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}