Young Creators Poet spotlight: Aiyana Sha’niel

Each day this week, we’re spotlighting the homegrown budding poetry and storytelling talent sourced via KCRW’s Young Creators Project, a community arts mentorship platform celebrating the creative work of SoCal residents under 21. 

Aiyana Sha’niel is a 19-year-old Black poet born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She has been writing for six years, beginning at Hamilton High School, where she wrote and performed on the school’s poetry team, Hamlit, and competed in Get Lit competitions from 2016-2020. Sha’niel has had individual pieces published nationally in various online magazines such as Rooted Minds, Black Minds Publishing, and Death Rattle. Sha’niel’s work has been published in the Behind the Vision’s “The Story Behind the Poems,” Sims Library of Poetry’s “Poems in Praise of Libraries,” and others. She was Poetry Out Loud’s 2020 County representative for Los Angeles and placed second in the State competition. 

She has performed and featured for various open mics, like Da Poetry Lounge, Palms Up Academy, Junior High LA, Get Lit mic, Sunday Jump, Art Is My Drug, House of Chaos, and others. Sha’niel was selected to host the American branch of the Italian virtual open mic, Rinascimento Poetico, from October to November 2021. She also started an open mic, The BackYart show, from 2018 to the beginning of the pandemic. 

She is a poetry teacher under Street Poets Organization, where she goes into four high school classes and one middle school class weekly to educate over 25 students per session in creative writing. 

In October 2021, Sha’niel was the Street Poets representative and performer for the Los Angeles Arts Recovery Fund Reception at the Getty Museum, hosted by Debbie Allen. She is a 2021 graduate of the Community Literature Initiative program (CLI). She is the youngest student graduate from the program at 18 years old, with her own full body of work. Sha’niel signed to World Stage Press and is working toward releasing her first collection of poems, titled “Little Black Poetry Book'' on September 24th of 2022.