ABOUT
Samuel Getachew is a 18-year-old spoken word poet and writer from Oakland, California.
Using poetry as a way to shine light on contemporary issues as well as an personal outlet for emotion, Samuel has had the opportunity to perform his poetry in places ranging from Google's Incarceration Summit to the Lollapalooza Music Festival, and much more.
His poetry has garnered over a million cumulative views online, and he and his poetry have been featured in The New York Times, The East Bay Express, Refinery29, National Public Radio (NPR), KQED, KTVU News, Voice of America, and more. His opinion writing and reporting have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, KQED Arts and Culture, The East Bay Express, and more.
Samuel is the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Grand Champion and a 2019 and 2020 YoungArts Winner in Spoken Word, as well as a 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 Honoree. He served as the 2019 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, and was named the West Region Youth Poet Laureate, as well as a finalist for 2020 National Youth Poet Laureate. He was a part of the team that represented the Bay Area at the Brave New Voices (BNV) Festival, the largest youth poetry competition in the world, in 2017, where he and his team were ranked within the top 8 in the world. Samuel also served as the youngest member of American Eagle's AExMe Council from 2019-2021.
Offstage, Samuel currently taking a gap year before enrolling at Yale University in the fall of 2021.