MEET ARIANA
Ariana Lee (she/her) is the 2022-2023 Houston Youth Poet Laureate and two-time member of Meta4 Houston, the city's official youth slam poetry team ranked #1 in the world at Youth Speaks' Brave New Voices competition in 2023. In recognition of the first Meta4 Houston team to win this title, the City of Houston proclaimed August 15th, 2023 as Meta4 Houston Day. 
A YoungArts winner in poetry and spoken word, Lee has written and performed original work for NASA; for Stop AAPI Hate; for the NCAA Men's Final Four Legacy Project presented by Degree; for the Aspen Institute; for choreographer Sorah Yang; and for the Houston Mayor's Office. She has collaborated and performed for The Battery SF, Children's Museum Houston, the Houston Climate Justice Museum, Houston Public Library, Inprint Houston, Houston Parks Board, Arts Connect Houston, BIPOC Book Fest, Writers in the Schools, and others. She has opened for U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón and is honored with a Certificate of Congressional Recognition and a proclamation of September 9th, 2023 as Ariana Lee Day in the City of Houston.
Ariana Lee is also a 2022-2023 Youth Fellow for the International Human Rights Art Movement where she curated an international, multimedia anthology highlighting youth voices and international solidarity. Her work appears in The Offing, Defunkt Magazine, One Breath Partnership, and more. She is a freshman at Stanford University.
"Our sun and our moon and our Earth—
Three dots like an ellipsis
An eclipse is when they align
And we behold a golden “silver lining”
A ring of fire in the sky.
We see, in this spotlighted shadow,
The brilliance of darkness.
We’re reminded, in this handful of minutes,
Of the greater, celestial bodies"
*Excerpt from Ariana's poem "Ring of Fire" performed at Johnson Space Center for the 2023 Annular Eclipse
