Trine
Maya R.
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Maya Raveneau-Bey is a senior at Oakland School for the Arts. Maya, a 2023 and 2024 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Finalist, 2023 YouthSpeaks Slam competition Finalist, and member of the Chapter 510 Youth Advisory board, is a learning poet. She assumed she was suffering from seeing the world in an upside down perspective, poetry introduced itself to her as a repetitive inconvenience. School was structured to indoctrinate a language of practicality into her that confined her creativity. It made it difficult to fit into a unidirectional system and she lost sight of a gift that was left in waiting. The reality was that she could see a poetic dimension to life, and this power with words bled into her early years and showed in birthday cards to personal essays to poems. As she continues to learn the parallels of who she is, her voice grows spirited.
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Creativity to me means style imbued in your own authenticity. It incites freedom and gives perspective. Creativity when it comes to my work plays a heavy role in my freedom principle. You can not feel confined in your own art otherwise you’re not doing it right. It’s about your truth.
