Philly’s new youth poet laureate says writing is her way to ‘detox from everything.’ Here is her story.

Oyewumi Oyeniyi writes poems the way she breathes: naturally.

Sometimes they help the 17-year-old senior at Cristo Rey High School in North Philadelphia process the world around her or parse emotions. Sometimes they celebrate who she is — a Black Philadelphian who is also Nigerian and Liberian, the child of immigrants, someone on an upward trajectory but keenly aware of the trauma that surrounds her.

And Monday, she’ll be the city’s Youth Poet Laureate — announced at the Free Library of Philadelphia by Mayor Jim Kenney and a host of dignitaries — with a platform to share her work and amplify the voices of other young people.

When Oyeniyi got the call that she’d won the honor, she thought she was being pranked, she said. She was being recognized for something so personal, so vulnerable, so essential to who she is?

“Poetry is not something that’s gradable, it’s abstract,” said Oyeniyi. “Poetry is limitless.”

So is she. But her path hasn’t always been easy.

Born in New York, Oyeniyi came to Philadelphia when she was a toddler, but “we moved around a lot, because we had to.”

Her family life was sometimes complicated. Her parents divorced, and family members struggled with mental health issues. Her grandmother died of cancer, a little brother is frequently hospitalized with asthma — “we have the ambulance on speed dial,” she said.

“When sirens are your lullaby, when your parents are fighting, when kids are getting thrown out of the house, I can sit down, read, write a poem, breathe,” said Oyeniyi, who now lives in Lawndale, in the Northeast.

And though most of her family doesn’t understand her call to poetry — in her West African community, she says “it’s not a big thing, people don’t think we’re capable of that, although we’re a very diverse and talented people, we’re not given the chance” — they know it’s important to Oyeniyi.

After her mother heard the Youth Poet Laureate news, she sang and danced around the house.

“My mom was ecstatic,” she said. “She just knows it’s a privileged position.”

When Oyeniyi was younger, she liked reading simple poems, the ones she read in school, rhyming and uncomplicated. Later, she grew fascinated by more complex forms.

“I’ve always been a writer; I’ve always been writing something,” said Oyeniyi. “There’s haikus and sonnets, but you don’t have to fit into that box. It’s a way to detox from everything that’s going on in my life.”

Cristo Rey is the first school she’s been able to attend for four years straight, and she’s thrown herself into it, working as a student journalist, participating in mental-health advocacy work, winning leadership prizes. She won the African American Recognition Award from the College Board, and she aims to propel her accomplishments into a college degree: her Harvard application is already complete, and she’s also applying to Johns Hopkins and some state schools.

She wants to double-major in psychology and creative writing, and hopes to become a psychiatrist someday.

Her goals are ambitious, but Oyeniyi is confident.

“When people think of Ivy League, they don’t think of kids like me. Helpfully this can help me open the door for other people,” she said.

And when she does, she’ll keep “writing about the things that people don’t want to talk about” — sexual assault, being queer in a family that doesn’t accept it, being big and dark-skinned, or a complex person from a community many people don’t understand.

During her year as Youth Poet Laureate, Oyeniyi wants to use her platform to lift up the stories of transgender youth and those experiencing homelessness.

“A lot of the time we don’t acknowledge the lives of those going through rough times because we are afraid to see ourselves reflected in them, and I think it’s time we realize that is because we easily could be them and that not everyone’s journey is black and white,” Oyeniyi said. “This is especially true when you consider systemic barriers and the history of them. It takes zero dollars to recognize someone’s humanity and that is exactly what I plan to do for the homeless community at large but especially homeless trans youth during my time in this position.”