Long Beach’s youth poet laureate has a critical piece of advice for aspiring writers and their ambitious anecdotes.
“If they’re bad, keep going,” says Claire Beeli, who has been honing new skills herself in the past two months since taking on her new role as a young role model for writers.
When Beeli recited one of her poems in early June—which earned her the title of Long Beach’s first-ever youth poet laureate—it was her first time ever performing one of her pieces. Now, she says it’s her favorite part of the role.
“I just love being able to meet new people, especially people who are involved in the Long Beach literary community and poetry scene,” Beeli said. “It’s really gratifying to be able to connect with so many different people who are also talented and to share my work with the world which is really important to me.”
Since becoming the youth poet laureate, the 17-year-old Wilson High School incoming senior has read her work at a poetry book debut at Wrigley Coffee and at an event with the Long Beach Library Foundation.
She said she’s enjoying learning the cadences and rhythms of performing poetry and turning it “into a kind of music.”
Beeli and the four youth poet ambassadors have been working throughout the summer to plan workshops for the upcoming year that will focus on encouraging youth to express themselves through literary art as well as creating community initiatives.
The workshops will take place at a handful of library branches and cover a wide variety of topics and niches within poetry. The young poets are also teaming up with CityHeART’s magazine “Arts from Ashes” for a series of youth workshops.
Beeli said she believes that even though writing poetry isn’t the type of art form that will guarantee someone a lucrative career, the connection to self and community makes it worthwhile.
“The reason anyone does poetry isn’t for money, it’s for art, it’s for making something beautiful,” Beeli said. “It’s for expressing something that you feel you might not be alone in, that other people can relate to.”
“It’s not a waste of time, I promise. And as you keep reading and keep writing, you’re going to get better. You’re going to get better at expressing your ideas and creating art. There’s no way around it.”
Claire Beeli, Youth Poet Laureate
Beeli has been writing for as long as she can remember, but she says her catalog grew immensely during the COVID-19 pandemic when she “had nothing better to do but sit around and type away.”
From these experiences, she says her other piece of advice for writers is to “buy a really cheap notebook and write all your poems in it.”
“It’s not a waste of time, I promise. And as you keep reading and keep writing, you’re going to get better,” Beeli said. “You’re going to get better at expressing your ideas and creating art. There’s no way around it.”
Beeli said her dream one day is to publish a novel. In the meantime, she’s helping to run a literary magazine at Wilson High School titled “La Fuente.” The magazine is taking submissions from youth from all over LBUSD. More details can be found on the magazine’s Instagram page @lafuentemagazine.
Claire Beeli’s poet recommendations for aspiring writers:
- James Wright
- E. E. Cummings
- Ocean Vuong
- Ada Limón
- Richard Siken
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