LP Writer Named National Student Poet: A Conversation with Demarion Martin

Demarion. Martin, a senior writing and publishing major at Lincoln Park, has been chosen as one of five National Student Poets by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

When senior writing and publishing major Demarion Martin thought about entering his poetry in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards last year, he considered a very practical point.

“I come from a background where money is harder to come by. I always think before I submit my work because, especially back then, I didn't really have a lot of money. I wasn’t working a job,” said Martin, who paid $50 to enter five poems in the competition. 

“Ten dollars a piece is expensive, so it's something that you really have to think about and something that you can be sure of,” he adds. “Because ten dollars is a meal.”

The gamble paid off in a big way. Martin, a New Castle native, has been selected as a 2025 National Student Poet to represent the Northeast region of the United States. 

Competing against 37,000 individuals, Martin was one of the five high school poets selected for a year of service as a national poetry ambassador. He’s hoping the experience will carry over into his college career: he will be attending Morehouse University in the fall to major in communication studies.

Gaining this new title as a poetry ambassador was a challenge, as he had to overcome obstacles along the way. Martin sat down recently and shared his story with us.

What made you decide to submit your writing to Scholastic Art and Writing?

Being a member of Writing and Publishing, you have to have a certain number of submissions, and throughout the year, I'm always looking for different places to submit my work. Especially as a young writer, I think it's very important and integral to get out there and for people to see your work in different rooms and in different places.

So, I was just looking, and I'm always like, "What are the biggest ones?" So, you get YoungArts, you get Scholastic, and so I was like, "Okay, let me submit to Scholastic and also YoungArts." I submitted to Scholastic, and then once I did that, I didn't know anything about the process until later. I just wanted to get out there, put my work out there, and try something different. 

I knew that if you won, you would get benefits, like you would get your work in the anthology if you got to the national level. You may even get money, and stuff like that incentivized me to submit in the first place.

Even if there weren’t any awards or cash prizes given, would you still submit anyway? 

Yes, I would still submit anyway. I think that for me, personally, I come from a background where money is harder to come by. I think you do have to understand that when you submit to Scholastic or YoungArts, you do have to pay in order to put your work into the system. 

I always really think before I submit my work because, especially back then, I didn't really have a lot of money; I wasn’t working a job. So, ten dollars a piece is expensive, so it's something that you really have to really think about and something that you can be sure of because ten dollars is a meal.

I think I had submitted five pieces [in 2024], so that would be $50. I thought that was the perfect amount for me, and I even did that again this year. But last year, when I submitted five pieces, I didn't know what was going to become of it, but I had [received] two Gold Keys. So, I was like, "Okay, so this is worth my money.” 

When the process first started, I didn't know if I was going to get a national medal or anything like that, outside of my two Gold Keys that you get regionally.

Once I had gotten selected to start the National Student Poet process, I think that's when I was like, “Yeah, this was really worth my money.” And I think that a lot of people out there should be thinking about the time and money they spend on these different competitions. It's important if you're asking your parents for the money, or if you're saving up the money yourself. You're investing in yourself, into your future, into your work, and stuff like that, so I think it's really important.

Did you know that you’d be competing against 37,000 other individuals? And would that have stopped you if you did know? 

No. When I first submitted, I wasn't even thinking about all the other people nationally.

My whole thing was like, "Oh, I just want a Key," like, a Gold Key regionally, or a Silver Key, or an Honorable Mention, anything like that. Any type of recognition from Scholastic is an achievement in and of itself, so I just wanted to get something.

When I had finished the National Student Poet process, the coordinator of all of the poets in the program, Ms. Hannah, was like, "You know, there were thirty-seven thousand poetry submissions, and only five people have made it to this point.” That’s when it felt surreal. When you think of a big football stadium, those barely hold ten thousand people. So, think of two football stadiums and then some. It’s a lot of people.

When they called me on Zoom to let me know that I had become the Northeast National Student Poet, I was at a loss for words because it was like, wow. It felt so big. I feel like in a moment like that, you can kind of get ahead of yourself and think that, like, "Oh, I'm better than thirty-seven thousand other people," but I think that every voice matters.

When it comes to something where there's thirty-seven thousand people, and they have to get down to five, it's all about who's in the room at the right time, and who's advocating for your work.

So, I don't know, it was overwhelming, but it was also like, I made it. People are finally seeing my work for what it is and what it's doing in the world, and I was so grateful, and I still am so grateful for the people who believe in me. It's all still crazy to me today. 

How did you find out that you won, and what was your reaction?

I don't think I can get too much into the details about how it works, but I can say that there's a very intricate process.

There’s an initial process, a little bit of a process after that process, and then at the end, there's a Zoom. They'll invite you on and basically let you know that you won.

At first, I thought that they were calling me on Zoom to say I didn't win. But when they had let me know, it was a really big moment for me. The process is super detailed, and it's daunting, but if anybody out there is selected, put all the work you can into it.

It's just really important that you try your best and that you understand that you could use the position to do good in your community, do good locally, and do good in your region.

There are responsibilities given to you as a National Student Poet. Have you started participating in any of them? What have you learned so far? 

Yes, I have kind of started a little bit of my responsibilities. I think it'll notch up a little bit more soon. I know that I do have a meeting soon with Ms. Glenis Richmond. She is the Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina.

Basically, we're working on a workshop the poets will be giving that’s on the topic of grief and loss. I have the process of creating a workshop to teach other people about the importance of grief and loss. I'll be talking about different poets, different poetic techniques, and I'll have a theme and stuff behind that.

I also do other work outside of my NSPP candidacy, but I always use it as a way to propel what I'm doing. So, say if I'm teaching a class at a library or something like that, I will use my NSPP title in order to propel that because it's a big thing. I think that it helps people understand not only my skill level but also what I have to offer.

I feel like a lot of times, when you get an email, and it's like, "Oh, there's going to be an event at the library being taught by [random person]." You're going to be like, "Oh, well, I don't really want to go to that because what is he going to have to teach me?" But when you see somebody’s title or what somebody’s done, it helps people understand that there's something really to be learned here. That’s how I’ve been using my NSPP title.

What are your goals as a National Student Poet? 

My goal is to do as much as I can with my candidacy. I think it's really important for me to understand that I do only have one year within this role, and there are certain expectations that come with it. I think that it's really important for me to meet those expectations, not only for myself, but for the people that are rooting for me. 

When I first applied, I had let people know that poetry is to bring light to issues that we don’t really look at or shine a light on. A lot of my work is about the Black diaspora. It's about Black youth, Black injustice, America, and different political issues. My goal is to spread awareness. It's to allow people to understand the weight of being a Black youth writer in America, somebody that has come from an impoverished background, and teaching other people that they could become more than their environment.

My goal is to just allow other people to understand that they're more than what people think they could be and allow other people to understand the power of the written word, of poetry and what it could do--not only within yourself, but within your community and the greater world at large.

When I was first given the candidacy, I really wanted to do a service project about going to different schools and giving workshops. I still think that I want to do something similar to that because I do have a few months left, and I want to make the most out of it.

And that might be harder or easier to do, but I just need to get out and do it. I just want to teach the power of the written word, of poetry.

I want more people to understand that you could live outside of a sport. The city I come from, New Castle, it's very sports-oriented. A lot of the Black male youth are kind of parochial in how they look at things. They're like, "Oh, I could only be a basketball player. I could only be a football player." I think that a lot of people in a lot of our home districts, especially as Lincoln Park students, only look at sports.

They're not really looking at the arts or looking at writing and what writing could do. So, my goal is just to let people understand that writing can be so much more, and you could do so much more when you just give it the space, time, and effort.

And when you see a student who is interested in writing or something like that, give them the resources. I didn't have those resources back when I was in New Castle. I would have never known about Scholastic, YoungArts, or Excel if it were not for my research that I did once I got here at Lincoln Park. 

How may this award help you in Morehouse College? Will it have any effect?

I think it will because, like I said, all writing helps you reach a broader audience.

And this National Student Poet role and Scholastic is kind of giving me a platform in order to allow other people to view and access the knowledge that I have. I think that's really important, and I think that at Morehouse, a college that is built on the foundational kind of framework of being a Black man in society, there are the Five Wells. I'm not going to get into them, but they’re the foundation of what Morehouse means. And I think that through my work with the NSPP, I'll be able to kind of transform or pivot into more roles that are kind of similar to this at Morehouse, and I'll be able to continue my work and then continue my teaching.

By the time I get to college, my candidacy will be over, but I think that what I've been learning and what I've learned through the NSPP poets, Ms. Hannah, and Ms. Glynis, will forever stay with me. I'll be able to bring that into any room I'm in. I think that's really important that I'm having these intimate moments with these people and learning about different backgrounds, different forms of poetry, and different stories. I'll be able to use those stories in order to uplift others and help bring them to where they should be or where they want to be. My motto is to help other people. 

I was somebody that didn't have a lot growing up, and I just want other people to have just as much as I have had. It's really important for me that I'm able to do that because of what I know and because of what I've learned.

Do you have any final thoughts? 

To anybody out there, I just want you guys to know that even if your work seems like it's not reaching anyone, or you're not winning awards or the next competition, just know that there are people out there that love your work, and you're doing something great.

Don't be scared. I think that it's really easy to be scared when you're younger, and you're putting your work into these different places. But know that it's okay to be scared, and it's normal, but you have so much greatness ahead of you.

Try not to put yourself into a box. I think that when I started off writing, I thought that I was going to be stuck in the mold of being a lack writer, and I feel like a lot of African-American youth feel like they'll be stuck in that kind of box. But I think that the more and more you put your work out there, the more and more you'll understand that your work speaks so much more volume, and it could have such a greater audience. I really am saying this to everybody: it doesn't matter if you're Black, white, whatever. Whatever background you come from, your work, your culture, your understanding of the world, it matters so much. I think that's the beauty of being a writer, is how we all have different perspectives and how our perspectives kind of are embedded in our writing and our writing voice.

So, don't be scared to go out there, even if you have to fall on your face a few times, or mess up a few times, or if you don't win the next big competition--that's okay. Keep trying. Keep giving yourself grace to become a better writer, to become a better poet, and to become a better whatever. Because you are great, and you do have greatness within you. You just have to let other people, and let yourself, see that.

Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School is a tuition-free public charter school located in Midland, PA, and open to all Pennsylvania families. Students grades 7-12 are bused from more than 90 different school districts to study the arts concentration of their choice: theatre, writing and publishing, media arts, health science and the arts, music, dance, and pre-law and the arts.

For more information, visit lppacs.org or contact: admissions@lppacs.org