NORFOLK, Neb. – Aliyah American Horse has experienced incredible success as a young poet, earning state, regional and national recognition.
The 2023 Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate and 2024 Midwestern Youth Poet Laureate has read at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and written two books of poetry, “Shed No Tears Unci” and “Warriors Within Words.”
She’s from the Oglala-Lakota tribe. She was born in Utah, then moved at age 8 to Gordon, which is in western Nebraska in the Sandhills. She’s enrolled at Nebraska Wesleyan University where she is studying English and writing.
American Horse was the first of this year’s Visiting Writers Series writers at Northeast Community College, speaking Wednesday Sept. 18, at Union 73 near the coffee shop. She was introduced by Bonnie Johnson-Bartee, Northeast English instructor and Visiting Writers Series coordinator.
After listening to American Horse discuss her poetry and answer questions, it might be hard to distinguish her from other college students.
She would like to become a teacher and is interested in music. She has a fiancé and wants to make the world a better place.
“In 10 years, I hope to either be a teacher or a writer full-time, doing what I am doing now,” American Horse said. “That would be traveling, going to school and places where I am talking about poetry and life and love and spirituality.”
Is she amazed at what she has accomplished already, just a couple of years away from high school?
“Absolutely. If you were to ask me a year ago –- or maybe a little bit more than a year ago – I would have told you that you are full of it and that I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today.”
It is only after hearing her read her poetry or discuss her life that listeners can begin to understand what has set her apart from others. Sure, she has a talent as she explained that she has poems she has written in three minutes, while others have taken days or weeks.
But as she shared, she is not afraid to address her vulnerability. She addresses subjects like death, alcoholism, rape, and how others have told her Natives should be. And while she admits some of her poetry is “quite dark,” she also writes about love and hope.
American Horse said she wants to inspire other Natives, just like she was inspired. One of her teachers in Gordon saw something in her poetry and encouraged her, giving her the courage to keep pursuing it, she said.
There was a time when she didn’t think there was anything special about her poetry.
She also credits sobriety with helping to improve her poetry. When she wasn’t sober, she was focused on other things, including “just trying to stay alive.
”I think sobriety actually has helped to inspire a lot of my poetry, just to be more healing and what not,” American Horse said.
American Horse reading
Aliyah American Horse, who started out writing songs as a girl, reads one of her poems on Wednesday, Sept. 18, at the first Visting Writers Series event at Northeast Community College in Union 73. (Northeast Community College)
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