By Becca Benson, Frederick (Oklahoma) High School
Passion and creativity are just two words to describe the vastness of 17-year-old artist and journalist Kylee Crisswell. Kylee is an innovative and artistic person. She has a specific passion for poetry.
She both reads and writes poetry and is currently trying to be published.
“I’ve written over 300 poems. And I want to do a collection series with that,” Kylee said.
She said that poetry isn’t just reading and writing, it’s also performing. Performance is something she really loves.
“I like the expression of it,” she said. “And I feel like even in writing, there’s only so much you can express. When you’re standing up performing in a room full of people, they’re seeing your facial expression. They’re hearing your voice crack in the middle of the performance, like, that’s what I like.”
Kylee said that poetry is important to her because it’s a “beautiful way to say not beautiful things.” Some would argue that all poetry is the same, but there are many different types of poetry. For example, slam poetry which Kylee describes as, “more emotion and heart and anger.”
These quick and short poems still show a range of emotions, Kylee said.
“There’s a reason why that poem is being performed. It’s not just a poem. It is a poem about a problem.”
Artistry is something that runs in her family.
Her mom is a poet as well, and her grandfather was photographer and videographer. He created photo montages and videos of everyone in the family and posted the pictures all over the house. Her family likes a combination of both art and psychology. She said they are very encouraging of her art.
“My grandfather and my mom have always been my biggest supporters,” she said. “I would say that they love to foster creativity because they believe that it is important for building character.”
Kylee said that the perspective is what interests her most about journalism.
“I like hearing other people’s stories, and I like knowing what’s going on in the world around me.”
Something that she’s learned in both journalism and art is that “nothing you do will ever make everyone happy.”
Despite others’ views, Kylee remains driven, and explores topics such as today’s politics landscape.
“Some people would look at my art, and they would call it vulgar or they would say it’s too obscene because of the things I write about or the way that I write them,” Kylee said. “But it’s a truth that someone is living. That’s why it needs to be talked about.”
Some final words of wisdom are that, anyone can be an artist.
“Art is very subjective,” she said. “And you do not have to go into it with this pre-designed idea of what art is or what it should be.”
She said that art is what people want it to be and that artists are ultimately creating for themselves.
“And if someone else finds inspiration in that fine, but if they don’t, they don’t need to because it’s not predominantly for them.”
