by Liz Maceda
Alys Traylor (Any/All Pronouns) is a poet, writer, photographer, book enthusiast, and not-so-beautiful mess from Chapel Hill. Traylor published their first book of poetry Speech Therapy, Eating Disorders, & Dyslexic Speculation, in 2025. Their work can also be found in The Young Writers Annual Showcase 2025, The Jaguar Athenaeum, Jagged Lines, the 1455 Youth Poets Anthology: Voices of Hope, and the upcoming Talk of the Town: Chapel Hill Mixtape led by Chapel Hill Poet Laureate Dr. Donovan Livingston. You can also find their poems around the state starting in August with the NCPS Poetry In Plain Sight initiative. Traylor is a 2025 and 2026 CHS Poet Laureate Finalist, the 2026 North Carolina Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador, the 2nd place poetry winner of the 2025 Pauli Murray Orange County Human Relations Contest, a 2026 Poetry Out Loud State Regional participant, and the 2nd place poetry winner for the 2026 NCCDA 60th Annual Poetry and Art Contest. Alongside poetry, Traylor also enjoys concert photography, local journalism, adding to their growing book collection, and listening to anything with a good beat. You can find Traylor on Instagram or checkout their website.
You published your poetry collection Speech Therapy, Eating Disorders, & Dyslexic Speculation at the age of 17. What advice would you give to young poets who are dreaming of publishing their own work?
My advice to young poets who want to publish their own work is just keep writing and keep pushing your work out there; you have to have drive and determination to just keep writing poetry. If it’s your passion, follow it, don’t let it die or trail off. The only way you’ll get further is if you take yourself seriously, because you are a poet no matter where in your poetic journey you are. I think truly you just need to keep writing. Even if you think you’re “not good enough” or “not professional enough” or you “don’t know enough technique.” If you write poetry, you are a poet, and that is enough credentials to publish your work. Don’t sell yourself short and just keep writing; writing is the biggest thing you can do for yourself to get you where you want to be, is to just keep creating art and refining your craft and your style.
Who was the target audience for Speech Therapy, Eating Disorders, & Dyslexic Speculation and how did you navigate writing about complex topics?
I think my target audience for my poetry collection is people who have a complex relationship with their own being in relation to family ties. This collection is a raw story of my personal relationship with my brother, which has been deeply traumatic over my childhood, and I wrote this poetry collection mainly for myself as a way to vocalize a lot of that trauma, but I also wrote it for people who have yet to find their words to vocalize their own traumas or who may resonate with my experiences.
I think talking about such complex topics is both a delicate thing and something you have to put yourself completely into. There’s no room to be apologetic when you’re writing about something so deeply personal, and I think that being raw and honest and blunt as your heart allows you to be is what the poem requires when it’s of such complex nature. But it’s also a delicate balance of spilling yourself onto the page wholeheartedly and molding those emotions into a cohesive piece that people can resonate with.
-Alys Traylor
You recently became the Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador for North Carolina! What does this role mean to you, and what are your main responsibilities?
I did! I’m very excited about this role. Mainly, this title means that I was a runner up for the Youth Poet Laureate of North Carolina, so I am not the official Youth Poet laureate of the state, that title belongs to the wonderful poet Kenna Zhang. As the ambassador, I don’t have quite the same reach as the YPL official, but I’m invited to workshops and programs in order to share my work, as well as engage with the community to help foster poetic community in the state. I’m excited to see where this role takes me and the initiatives I’ll be able to help out with!
How do you plan to use your platform to make a tangible impact on your local community while transitioning to college/studying abroad?
I intend to use my platform to keep writing, to keep pushing my own poetry, as well as pushing out and sharing the poetry and accomplishments of other local poets whom I love and support, as well as sharing local poetry events and even wider spread poetry news. I want to use my social media presence to share poetry things that are happening, everything from new books out to submissions and competitions, to local events. I do a lot of that already with the Poetic Justice League Instagram, but I want to do more of it on my own platform. I also want to use my platform as a space to advocate for more poetic initiatives in the state and in schools, and making sure that everyone has equal access and opportunity to poetry. And I intend to continue to do this and build this up more on my platform as I go into college and my next phases of life.
Why is it important to speak up about equality through poetry, rather than leaving it to the news? What can poetry offer that articles cannot?
I believe in always speaking up for what we believe in, anytime we can afford it, in any artistic medium. It’s not enough to simply leave it to the media to inform the people, we also need to advocate for ourselves, our beliefs, and what is right for the people and our community.
Art has the power to move people, to share emotional stories, not just the facts. It’s used as an expressive medium that has been used throughout history to share unhappiness with the way things are. I think it’s incredibly important that we’re using poetry, we’re using stories and experiences and language, to convey that we are unhappy with how the people we care about are being treated, how our communities are being impacted, and that we want change and we want equality for all people. Poetry can be incredibly powerful, and we need that powerful movement, those deep emotions, to show the people around us and the people in charge that we will not stand for their indifference and their hatred, and that we are stronger as a whole community and we all are deserving of respect and equality.
Alys Traylor
What goals do you hope to accomplish during your time as Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador-and what are your aspirations outside of it, such as a new poetry collection, open mics or workshops?
As Ambassador I don’t have as much of a role as the YPL official, but I do still want to be involved in the poetic community. I would love to help out with any initiatives or workshops that Kenna Zhang, the NC Youth Poet Laureate, works on. I’m also still involved for the summer with the Poetic Justice League at Carrboro High School, so I’ve been able to do several readings and workshops with them, and I look forward to getting to do more with them until I leave for college in August. I don’t have any set goals per say, I just want to be involved with the community and to bring poetry to everyone that I can and simply just surround myself with people who are like me and want to be involved with poetry however they can. I want to be able to bring poetry to everyone who is looking for a place to engage with it and to be able to foster that community wherever I go, no matter what I do. And outside of that, as for projects I’m working on myself, I don’t have anything in the works right now, but I know I’ll be involved however I can whenever I have time outside of work and school. I’m still kind of working on a project of mine for my Girl Scout Gold Award project of highlighting underrepresented queer poets throughout history, but I recently haven’t had the time to truly dedicate myself to that project as much as I would like.
Which specific people, organizations, or fellow authors in North Carolina you would be honored to collaborate with?
There are several people I would love to have the honor of collaborating with. The current NC Youth Poet Laureate, Kenna Zhang, is someone I would love to work with, as well as former NC Youth Poet Laureate Rishi Janakiraman. They are both brilliant young poets like myself, and I would be more than honored to get to work with either of them on something. I also have had the honor to meet and do workshops with NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green, but I have never collaborated with her on a project, and I think that would be something really special. I also want to do more projects with local poets, like Former Carrboro Poet Laureate Liza Wolff-Francis, Chapel Hill Poet Laureate Dr. Donovan Livingston, and Current Carrboro Poet Laureate Dr. Amanda Bennett. I’ve had the honor to meet each of these local poet laureates and work with some of them to some degree, either in workshops or on the Chapel Hill Mixtape Project, but I am always honored anytime I get to work with them.
What inspired your PIPS poem By the Gaslight? What emotion were you hoping to evoke in the readers?
I had originally written that poem for a Eco-Poetry workshop I did with former Carrboro Poet Laureate Liza Wolff-Francis, and I submitted a pared down, shorter version to submit to the PIPS program. I really wanted to highlight a current issue that I think almost everyone across the state can agree on at some level; climate change. I really like my piece because I feel it really plays to emotion; it’s a charged piece that forces the reader to really think about what’s happening in the world around us, and especially to reflect on the life that is being presented to the youth of the next generation and the impacts that they see on the planet. I wanted to show people that not only is climate change real and it’s causing a lot of harm that we need to proactively stop, but also that the next generation is seeing the effects of climate change in real time, and are seeing how nothing is being done, and we are upset and we want change. Sometimes the older generations don’t see the impacts as vividly as the youth because the changes have been happening slowly overtime, whereas kids today are seeing our reality and asking when has the earth been healthy.
You often share your photography journey on social media. How does your love for capturing the moment influence or inspire your poetry?
Alys Traylor
I think there’s something poetic in photography; the art of composing a shot, editing a photo to convey certain emotions, and the act of being present and noticing the little details. I do a lot of concert photography, and that has bled into my poetry in terms of being more in tune with my community, being inspired by songs and lyrics, and seeing the crowd come together as one to appreciate musical artistry. I’ve written a few pieces about that sense of community and being in the crowd with people who are in love with the beat as much as I am, and seeing my friends sing on stage. Also, a lot of my poetry stems from wanting to capture a feeling, or capture a moment, and that’s very similar to how I approach my photography; I want to capture this memory I’m living, capture this emotion I’m experiencing so intensely, so I can try to convey that feeling to someone else.
How does your future plans align with being Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador of North Carolina while transitioning to college life/studying abroad?
Despite going to college, I still want to be involved where I can. I’ll be going to the UNC Chapel Hill, so I’ll still be in state to be involved in my role however I can, but my first semester I will be abroad in Ireland, so there is only so much I can do from across the pond. While I don’t know what I want to study yet, I know poetry will be involved in some way; I have found a joy and love for writing poetry that I will pursue for the rest of my life, that fire is not dying anytime soon, and I plan on fostering that flame as much as I can in college and staying connected and involved in the poetic community in Chapel Hill and North Carolina as much as I can. I know Kenna Zhang will be going to Boston for college, so there is a space for me and the other poet laureate ambassador to be more involved while she’s in college, but I want to be involved however I can, wherever they need me. I love the poetic community here in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, and I really want to branch out and work with the rest of North Carolina however I can.