Hello everyone!

Welcome to our PoArtMo Anthology (Youth Edition) Series, which celebrates the talented young creatives featured in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: Youth Edition.

Today, Lauren Goulette and Pragya Gupta are telling us what inspired the poems they sent us

Lauren Goulette

Lauren Goulette (Hudson, U.S.) enjoys Lacrosse, poetry, rowing, yoga, and reading. She would like to become a human rights lawyer. “My role model is Kinsale Hueston because she incorporates a modern yet timeless outlook on her poetry reflecting ancestry and heritage.”

Lauren sent us the poem titled Flowers in My Jeans:

My poem was inspired by growing up in northern Wisconsin, surrounded by nature, and how much that meant to me and the people around me, especially toying in that childlike-awe and mystical perception of our surroundings. It is the written form of my nostalgia and recollection of youth and childhood memories. 

Lauren Goulette

Pragya Gupta

Pragya Gupta (Hapur, India) likes writing, debating and cycling, and wants to be a human rights lawyer. “Besides my mother, American Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is someone I look up to. Her enthusiasm and ability to bring about change through grassroots campaigns and policy-making is inspiring to me.”

Pragya sent us the poem titled Life:

I was eleven when I wrote my first poem. I was merely trying my hand at rhyming words and poetry happened. Little did I know it would become a part of my soul; that it would make me understand the complexities of this world and be my pillar in my teenage years.

“Life” is the poem closest to my heart. I remember writing a part of it in a garden while I manifested life from the perspective of nature, and the other one beside the window in my History class. What really inspired me to pen down this piece was my experience of getting bullied at school, blurred images of friendships, and overcoming the fatty tag. Then followed the feelings of misery, loneliness, and abandonment. I was struggling with the hypocrisy of adults, lies in casual friendships, mockery of being overweight, and constant demeaning from all sides. They say, “Whatever happens, happens for a good reason!”. My mother brought me “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, whose preface has now become my every morning read and whose gravity continues to pull me towards its divinity. I changed school, met new people, came out of my little shell, and made a good friend. This is how “Life” was born. I had learned very important lessons of life, which I effortlessly wove into words. Now, all I hope is that the ones reading it will not be disappointed, and rather love “Life”.

Pragya Gupta

Lauren and Pragya, thank you for sharing what inspired your poems. We know that people will love your work as much as we do!

Cendrine & David