Poet Shares Her Insight with Upper School English Students

Poet and author Stephanie Adams-Santos spoke to the 10th grade English class on November 12 about how she became a poet, her process, and what inspires her work. 

Adams-Santos (she/they) is a Guatemalan-American writer who was born and raised in Portland. Her work spans poetry, prose, and screenwriting, and is rooted in the crossroads of ritual, ancestry, and environment. Her full-length poetry collection Swarm Queen's Crown was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and her long poem Dream of Xibalba was selected by Jericho Brown as the winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize and is a finalist for both the 2024 Oregon Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She was invited to speak at OES by Upper School English Teacher Evan Hansen.

Adams-Santos spoke to the students about her childhood, growing up in Portland, and her memories of driving with her family to Guatemala to visit her grandmother. During that eight-day drive, she said that she felt like she was traveling from one world to another, one culture to another, from a home with modern conveniences to one where tortillas were cooked over a fire and, because the house was courtyard-style built around an open interior, “when it rained the open center of the house would fill with the sound of frogs, so the outside there was always in and close to you.”

She quoted the poet Wallace Stevens in saying, “The poet is the priest of the invisible,” and said that poems give voice and an embodiment to our inner experiences.

“We all have these vast inner lives, inner lives that are haunted in unique ways, and shaped by ancestors and environments, and dreams, and what we communicate in the everyday world is like the tiniest tip of the iceberg of what’s alive inside. So poetry became this place where I could invent my own language for that inner life.”

Adams-Santos encouraged the students to journal, which she has been doing since second grade when a teacher encouraged it as a form of self-expression, and to not give up when writing is difficult. “Writing is 90% struggle,” she smiled. “It’s not easy but if you stay with it, it’s worth the challenge.”

She shared that writing helps us connect with ourselves, and find true meaning in our lives.

“I wish my 10th grade self had known that true success isn’t about fitting into anyone else’s expectations—it’s about honoring what feels vital, meaningful, and alive within you. You have the power to create a path that feeds your spirit, and that can be a kind of success that no one else defines but you. Art, in all its forms, can be a space for healing and transformation—not just for ourselves, but for the world. We need more voices that are willing to bear witness, to hold space for what others may turn away from. Whatever struggles you face, they can become part of your strength, part of your voice.”

The students asked questions such as, what drew Adams-Santos into poetry (she was on a pre-med track, but changed her mind after being impacted by taking a college class in poetry and realizing it was more meaningful to her), when she chooses to use words in Spanish rather than English (when the feeling the word invokes isn’t the same in English), and whether a book of poetry is considered a book as a whole or separate works (fragments of writing can exist both on their own and pulled together into a new piece).

Carol H. ’27 shared her thoughts about the presentation:

“It was incredibly inspiring to hear from Stephanie as a professional poet about their journey! From how they once worried about their future career, only to eventually discover their true passion for poetry—this resonated with me deeply. Their response helped us truly understand what a path as a publishing poet could look like and encouraged me to follow my heart in poetry.”

Lucy N. ’27 said:

“It was really enlightening to hear from a poet in real time because we’ve spent so much of the past few months reading from poets like Stephanie. The story they told was inspirational and very personal to people our age who might be struggling through some of the same potential career conflictions they once did. Their reading helped me see poetry in a new, interesting way that I hadn’t yet been able to.”