Poet Profile

Who exactly is compiling these “new ways to experience poetry in the 21st century”? Why is he including certain things… and not other things? Why did he start Poetry 2.0 in the first place?

Louis Lafair

National Student Poet

Louis Lafair serves as the 2013 National Student Poet for the Southwest region of the United States. (The National Student Poets Program is “the country’s highest honor for youth poets presenting original work.”) During his term of service, he’s worked with other students, but also with educators in an attempt to demonstrate how much of an impact they can have on their students; it was a teacher, after all, who helped him fall in love with poetry. Louis has presented at events like the National Book Festival, SXSWedu, the Aspen IDEAS Festival, and the Texas Council for Teachers of English and Language Arts. He believes strongly that there is no such thing as “getting” or “not getting” poetry, but simply experiencing poetry—and so many new ways to do so in the 21st century. He founded Poetry 2.0 out of this belief, sharing some of his favorite “ways to experience poetry” for anyone who’s interested. Louis is also the founder of TEDxYouth@Austin and the inventor of a published board game. This year, he’s starting in the Class of 2018 at Stanford University.

If you have any suggestions of additional content for Poetry 2.0—learning platforms, organizations, social media, technology, or videos that have impacted you—feel free to reach out. He’d love to hear from you.

If you’re interested in bringing him to an event, please fill out the contact form.

All of Louis’s poetry involves playing with language. Some (but certainly not all) of it involves 2.0 techniques. Here, he’s compiled four of his own poems that are particularly relevant to this site.