POETRY CONTINUES TO be one of Houston’s most celebrated cultural exports, especially when it is brought to life onstage, with considerable theatrical flair, by the city’s premier youth poetry team, Meta4 Houston.

Established in 2007 by Shannon Buggs and Sixto Wagan, and later adopted in 2012 by Writers in the Schools, the Meta4 Houston Youth Writing Fellowship nurtures poets aged 13-19, helping them develop their writerly skills and a fearless style of “performance poetry” designed to wow audiences in large venues. (The 1970s-era poetry collective The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, and Nikki Giovanni set the precedent for this style of poetry, which is both highly musical and intensely political in its delivery and content.)

Each year, the fellowship welcomes a new team of poets from across Houston to represent as Meta4 Houston and travel across the country to compete against other talented teams in poetry “slams.” Last year, Meta4 won the national championship in the prestigious Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival. It was the first-time first-place win for the team and, amazingly, on July 20, 2024, Meta4 won first place at the Brave New Voices slam for the second consecutive year.

This year’s Meta4 poets — Bela Kalra, Amaya Newsome, Cristina Perez-Ruiz, Mya Skelton, and returning fellows Samiyah Green and Adriana Winkelmayer — spent months preparing for the competition, guided by Houston Poet Laureate Emeritus, Emmanuel “Outspoken” Bean, and co-coach and Meta4 alumni, Alinda "Adam" Mac. Onstage at the historic Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., the members of Meta4 delivered poems addressing such hot-button topics as Texas climate change, gun violence, and fast fashion.

In a statement, WITS executive director Giuseppe Taurino expressed his joy at Meta4’s victory: “These powerful young artists have been hard at work honing their craft for months and are deserving of this great win. Their dedication to exploring, investigating, and genuinely interacting with the world around them is inspiring.”

On Sept. 28, at the WITS house located near the Menil Collection, leaders in the arts, current Meta4 members and alumni, and program supporters will gather to celebrate the second first-place Brave New Voices win, as the MetaForward campaign prepares the program for the 2025 team.