Talking with Philly's first youth poet laureate

Siduri Beckman, 14, swoons over George Eliot's

Silas Marner

with a passion many girls her age reserve for, say, One Direction boy-band phenom Harry Styles.

"I loooove that book," she said, sitting in the auditorium at her school, Julia R. Masterman.

Correction. She loves Eliot's Middlemarch first, then Silas Marner.

But Philadelphia's first youth poet laureate - Mayor Nutter announced her title this week - has never read Harry Potter.

If her tastes seem a little serious, Beckman herself is not. She explains that her parents, Karen and Michael Beckman of West Philadelphia, named her Siduri after the "bartender to the gods" in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The literary Siduri knows the secret of everlasting life, Beckman says.

Does the real-life Siduri know it?

"It's a secret," she said impishly. "That is all I will disclose at this time."

Would she make up a spontaneous poem about her appointment as youth poet laureate?

"It probably wouldn't turn out that well," she said. "They would probably revoke the position."

In her new role, Beckman will work with Philadelphia Poet Laureate Sonia Sanchez to promote poetry and the arts.

"We look forward to seeing her grow as a poet and develop her talents while inspiring her fellow youth to greater artistic pursuits and success in life," Gary Steuer, the city's chief cultural officer, said in announcing the decision.

Jaya Montague, 17, a junior at Philadelphia's High School of Creative and Performing Arts, was a finalist for the youth poet laureate position and will also work with Sanchez.

Montague said she has been enchanted with poetry since she was a child.

"My first poem that I vividly remember, I wrote in second grade for a poetry project," Montague said. "It went, 'Rain, drip, drop, drop, drip,' something like that."

Beckman, too, got an early start. Her parents - her mother is a professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, and her father operates a hedge fund - began by reading Shel Silverstein aloud to their oldest daughter. From there, it was on to John Donne and other poetic standard-bearers.

"I always found it so fascinating," Siduri Beckman said, "that how some people would just like say the right words and, like, this amazing effect could be produced."

Her first poem, written when she was 6, was about a fat cat on a mat.

"My poetry began to grow when I realized it didn't have to rhyme," she said.

She aims to be a Supreme Court justice.

"I feel like they are the people, when you look at key moments in history, they are always there making the huge decisions," she said, "and I really would love to be a part of something that could be remembered."

Her hero is former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"She broke the gender barrier," Beckman said.

She keeps Post-it notes by her bedside so that she can scribble good ideas down even in the middle of the night and is working on a historical novel about the Puritans. There is no poetry in the novel, she said, although the spells by the characters who are witches come close.

She devours as many poets as she can - she has long been a Sanchez fan - and mimics their styles so that she can develop her own. Two of her other favorites are T.S. Eliot and Lorine Niedecker.

As youth poet laureate, she hopes to encourage others to explore her personal passion. One idea: Have poetry readings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in front of works that inspired the words.

Siduri Beckman wrote this for her 3-year-old brother, Bruno, after a crime occurred in their West Philadelphia neighborhood.

Bruno

brother of

the poet

Yearns for a dragon

to come his way

His sister hath whispered

in small ears

of days of old

knights

fairies

trolls

On land

he will ride

a noble steed of snow

Drawing from an armored side

a sword of justice

to shine

among the darkness

One day

said the sister

you must ride

for the poor

the weak

the helpless

ride the sinewy snow

fight

the dragon

His face

chubby

framed by the window

waits

watches

sirens wail by

a man

mugged

shot

left for dead

he waits

for the dragon.

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