One of the dynamic speakers at CTA’s Summer Institute, July 24-28 at UCLA, is Alexandra Huynh, the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate. Huynh, who grew up in Sacramento and just finished her first year at Stanford University, was raised by Vietnamese American immigrant parents — an experience that plays a significant role in her poetry and her mission to connect cultures and work toward social justice.

At the Instruction & Professional Development strand at Summer Institute, Huynh will speak about how she became a poet, how her time at school shaped her, and the impact that teachers have had on her life and advocacy. She will also do a short poetry workshop with educators and read some of her poetry. Register for Summer Institute here.

Below is an excerpt from “Love Song for the End of the World,” by Alexandra Huynh:

Should the end of the world come,
tell them we’re not scared.

You see, worlds end all the time;
This moment is a world,
this poem a world

And there will be infinitely many after it.

How wondrous it is
that we have memory
to weave these stars into constellations

There is a pattern
we burn into the night sky
and we alone can make it beautiful

So listen now
while our hands are
still raw with magic:

hold all that you can
build something, break it down,
then build again

and when you finally look up
smile at the people standing beside you.