As a writer who began in spoken-word, I believed for too long that to write in standard form (i.e. sonnets, sestinas, etc.) was to engage in white literary vehicles antithetical to my existence as a writer of color. At a recent lecture by Natasha Trethewey, she argued for poets of color to embrace white traditional forms as one of many ways to subvert the white canon.

Attending this conference catalyzed my outlook on my life as a young Korean-American woman and poet. Visibility is a concept thrown around frequently in the liberal sphere, but I cannot tell you how important it was to see people who looked like me, succeeding.