Sojourner Ahebee Is Newest National Student Poet!

The White House recently named 17-year-old Sojourner Ahebee as this year's National Student Poet!

Sojourner was born in Cote d'Ivroire, West Africa and relocated to Philadelphia when she was 7 years old, after the beginning of the  Ivorian civil war.

When Sojourner struggled at first with coping with her new life in the U.S., her mother encouraged her to pour out her heart in poetry.

"A lot of my work encompasses what it means to search for home, what it means to belong to a country in a culture that makes up so much of who I am, yet that sense of detachment that I feel because I'm not physically there," Sojourner explained. "It's where a lot of the tension gets created in my poetry."

Every year the National Student Poets are chosen from students in grades 9 to 11 who receive national medals in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

The complex expression of emotions in Sojourner's poetry gave her not only the title of National Student Poet, but a chance to visit the White House  and meet First Lady Michelle Obama.

Sojourner is a senior in high school majoring in creative writing at the Inerlochen Arts Academy in Michigan.

You can read samples of her poetry here!

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