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To Be Dr. Seuss's Son

Poet Christian Palacios, 17, is a junior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. This is the second year he has represented his school at Louder Than a Bomb, which advanced to the Final round of competition in the 2012 Festival. To Be Dr. Seuss’s Son is a poem Christian says he wrote “for anyone who has ever lived in someone else’s shadow and is dying to break out.”

Poet Christian Palacios, 17, is a junior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. This is the second year he has represented his school at Louder Than a Bomb, which advanced to the Final round of competition in the 2012 Festival.

To Be Dr. Seuss’s Son is a poem Christian says he wrote “for anyone who has ever lived in someone else’s shadow and is dying to break out.”

Though everyone knows “the points are not the point, the point is the poetry” – congratulations to Christian, who successfully advanced to the Final round of competition, one of the top 13 individual poets in the 2012 Festival, out of a field of over 800 young writers. Christian was also an Indy Finalist in 2011, and you can hear his piece, Villians, here.

The largest of its kind in the world, Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB) is Chicago’s rapidly-growing teen poetry festival, taking place February 18 - March 10, 2012, at various venues around Chicago. Aiming to bring teens together across racial, gang, and socio-economic lines, LTAB is a friendly competition that emphasizes self-expression and community via poetry, oral story-telling, and hip-hop spoken word.

Click here to hear all the other 2012 recordings, alongside nearly 200 Louder Than a Bomb Finalist pieces recorded by Chicago Public Media (WBEZ-Chicago) over the past eight years.

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