Youth Poet Laureate Ivy Smith inspires through poetry

Award-winning isn’t a phrase that Ivy Smith would use to characterize some of her early poetry.

In fact, she would describe it as “cringey.”

But that’s the last word that anyone would use nowadays when talking about the 17-year-old Moon Township resident, whose reign as the 2025-26 Allegheny County Youth Poet Laureate is winding down.

That title was bestowed upon Smith early in the current school year by the City of Asylum, and she’s used it to – as she says – “spread the gospel of poetry” at various events around the county.

She’ll get at least one more crack later this month when she reads some of her work at the fifth Pittsburgh Book Fest, which will take place Saturday, May 30, at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s main campus in Oakland.

That’s a long way from writing knock-offs of “Harry Potter” as a second-grader or dabbling in elementary poetry. She said she started taking her craft seriously around seventh grade.

“It was intuitive for me as a way to express myself,” she said of poetry. “That’s when I put on the gas to start writing more of it.”

In her early stages, she was producing what she refers to as “angsty middle schooler stuff” and lacked confidence to go deeper.

“I was hesitant – I thought every 13-year-old is angsty, so what do I have to say that’s different?” she recalled. “But then I realized I might have a different way to put it.

“People having a problem thinking they’re never going to say anything original but realizing that no one could say it like me helped me embrace the cringey middle school stuff.”

One of her teachers at Lincoln Park School for the Performing Arts saw the potential that Smith displayed near the end of seventh grade, and rather than moving on to an eighth-grade writing class the following year, she was bumped up to a ninth-grade class. She continued working on her craft and when she saw something at school last fall that advertised the Youth Poet Laureate program, she submitted the application materials to the City of Asylum – a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit literary and arts organization that oversees the county’s Youth Poet Laureate program. The county program is part of a national Youth Poet Laureate effort.

Smith was required to submit five poems and answer some questions about her community involvement. She said the poems she submitted focused mostly on “nature – directly or indirectly.” Her work certainly resonated with the judges – two former Youth Poet Laureates and a youth writing educator from Pittsburgh.

Alexis Jabour, the City of Asylum’s community engagement manager, was very complimentary toward Smith’s poetry.

“It’s very insightful,” she said of Smith, one of 43 applicants for the honor. Another West Hills student, Lillia Strickland, a senior at Montour High School, was chosen as one of four Youth Poet Ambassadors. The ambassadors also get opportunities to share their work in public by attending various events.

Jabour said Smith, in her poetry, grapples with topics you wouldn’t expect to see from a high school student.

“She talks a lot about environmental justice, reflecting on the state of the earth in a very mature and knowledgeable and worldly way,” she said. “I’m so impressed – she shows real wisdom and maturity for a 17-year-old.”

In terms of her poetry mechanics, Jabour said Smith displayed “a real breadth of different skills. She’s clearly got a handle on a lot of techniques and topics.”

But Jabour said the community work that Smith has done was equally as impressive as her poetry. “If someone has a really strong poetry application but all they do is sit at home and write poetry, and they’re not engaging with their school or community in any way, they likely wouldn’t win the title (of Youth Poet Laureate),” she said. “We look at the applications holistically.”

As for community involvement, Smith is active with her church group, helping to repair houses during the summer. And she also helped her school’s student council with a Christmas basket program for a youth center in Midland.

“I’m really interested in being class-conscious,” said Smith, who attended Moon schools from first through sixth grade, with her last year being a home-school situation because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She began attending Lincoln Park as a seventh grader and is on track to graduate in the spring of 2027.

Her achievement caught the eye of the Moon Township Board of Supervisors, which earlier this month recognized Smith with an official certificate.

“Your dedication to poetry and creative writing, your leadership as poetry editor of your school’s literary journal and your published works exemplify artistic excellence and the power of youth voice,” the certificate stated. “May your words continue to inspire, uplift and create meaningful change.”

The certificate and recognition from the township supervisors, Smith said, “Is something I’m really honored to have.”

After finishing at Lincoln Park, Smith said she plans to continue pursuing poetry and writing independently while attending college. At this point, she is considering majoring in broadcast journalism – she’s a fan of the TV program “CBS News Sunday Morning” — and film. She had an opportunity to do some radio journalism work while interning at the Saturday Light Brigade, which – according to its website – “uses radio and audio to amplify voices of youth — and members of other communities whose stories are often marginalized — to educate, empower, and build community.”

“I did a piece on gentrification in Pittsburgh and got to interview some cool people,” she said. “I really enjoy getting to capture people’s lives and getting to connect.”

In the meantime, she’ll continue honing her poetry craft and helping others learn to appreciate the art. Recently, she led a poetry workshop at the Sewickley Library for students at Quaker Valley High School and the Watson Institute and had a chance to share some of her work.

Smith said when she first began writing poetry, she was a “really quiet person, which is why I would write – it was a way around speaking if I could have people read what I thought.”

Now, she says, reading her poetry is “a way to connect with people without having to be too spur of the moment.”

As for the reaction she receives when sharing her poetry, it varies depending on the audience – and the poems she chooses to read.

“Usually the response is pretty minimal,” she said. “It ranges from confusion, if they aren’t so much a fan, or some people really like it and they come up afterward and say, ‘I love that poem.’ That’s really nice.”