Daniel Umemezie is only beginning his undergraduate education at Iowa State University, where he plans to study aerospace engineering, but he takes with him a wealth of experience as a prominent literary citizen. He completed his high school education in Cedar Falls, Iowa, serving as the state’s 2025–2026 Student Poet Ambassador, and was recently named the tenth National Youth Poet Laureate by the nonprofit organization Urban Word. He recently spoke about the impact of poetry on his formative years, art as a door to empathy, and the value of cultivating a creative life. {read}