The Aspen Words Youth Poetry Slam happened virtually this spring — a first for the annual spoken word competition. Although, audiences who attended previous in-person competitions were likely familiar with the winner. Ruthie Brown, a senior at Roaring Fork High School, was crowned the Slam champion for the second year in a row.
Brown first discovered creative writing as a freshman in high school. She said that in a more typical year, it would be hard to write every day, between AP classes and extracurriculars. However, the change of pace during the pandemic gave her time to fill entire notebooks with poems and stories. Brown performed two poems for her winning performance at the Aspen Words event. She’ll head to Middlebury College in Vermont next year.
As the last part of our series “Young Artists: A Collage of Creative Voices” about how local kids have kept creating during the pandemic, arts and culture reporter Kirsten Dobroth sent this audio postcard from Brown’s backyard in Carbondale.
