The Hawaii-bred poet who will soon champion the empowering properties of arts and letters among the youth of Nicaragua has a confession.
"Growing up, I hated reading and writing and literature," says Laurel Nakanishi, laughing. "They were really hard for me."
Nakanishi has dyslexia, a reading disability that occurs when the brain has difficulty processing symbols.
Luckily, she was diagnosed in the second grade and enrolled in programs that gave her the tools to cope. By the time she got to Mid-Pacific Institute as a teen, Nakanishi was composing poetry on her own.
"Through poetry you can really synthesize a lot of different elements of art: imagery, musicality, the history of the words and their usage. But I’m also interested in poetry as a form of activism, a way to focus people’s attention on issues that often go ignored."
Nakanishi, who graduated from Lewis & Clark College and holds a Master of Fine Arts in English from the University of Montana, says her art has been deeply informed by her travels.
First, she and Mid-Pac classmates brought their production of "Pele Ma" to Scotland. Since then she has spent significant time in Japan, Australia, Cambodia and Ecuador.
She first visited Nicaragua with her parents six years ago and was smitten.
"The way people interact with poetry there is amazing," she says. "I thought, ‘Wow, people actually care about poetry here.’ It’s such a vibrant culture with such a rich history. I knew I wanted to come back someday."
This year, Nakanishi was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Nicaragua. There she will establish an artists-in-the-schools program that will include instruction by two Nicaraguan poets and a theater component developed with a Nicaraguan-born actor.
"I’m interested in this program because I want to help kids see that they have a voice. When you feel powerless — and kids are often in situations in which they are powerless — it’s amazing to realize that you have a voice and that what you have to say matters. That’s what poetry can bring."
