Talena Lachelle Queen knew she wanted to be a writer as soon as she learned to read. At the age of 5, she discovered her love for poetry.
The daughter of two teen parents, Queen said she had a lot of cards stacked against her. Her parents lived in impoverished conditions, and her father struggled with addiction. He was later absent and then incarcerated, and these, too, were obstacles that could have made her a statistic and left her dreams unfulfilled.
But Queen is now a high school teacher and the poet laureate for her hometown of Paterson, New Jersey.
“I’m living my dream now as a poet and a teacher and a leader of a nonprofit,” she said, crediting the support of her teachers and extended family, the wisdom of her ancestors and more than a touch of serendipity for where she is today.
A passion for education
“My teachers recognized me as smart, my family referred to me as smart very early on, and I think young people believe what you tell them about themselves,” Queen said. “They don’t know who they are yet. And so whatever narrative we are giving to young people, they believe that. So, I was fortunate that the narrative my family was giving me was ‘You are beautiful. You are smart. You are talented.’ It was very affirming.”
Queen knew from a young age that she wanted to be educated, she said. She also had an early passion for sharing what she learned with others and would gather her cousins and siblings to play school — giving lessons on what she learned in class.
When Rosa L. Parks School of Fine and Performing Arts was founded in 1986, Queen said everyone wanted to go. The television show “Fame” was popular at the time, and every student wanted a chance to have a similar experience. For Queen, it was an opportunity to follow her creative dreams. She got in and majored in creative writing.
Toward the end of high school, she also ventured into journalism, which sparked her interest as a potential career. She then attended Montclair State University, where she majored in Broadcast Journalism. It was while she was at Montclair that Queen was first drawn to the UW when she saw a poster outside her adviser’s office.
“There was this poster for the University of Washington that sort of glowed in my head,” she said. “It was sort of guided by ancestors, and it pulled me into this outer body experience, like this spiritual serendipity, and there was no question. I knew I had to go there.”
The timing matters
Queen intended to get a teaching degree when she first arrived in Seattle but was delayed when a difficult pregnancy put her on bed rest. After her first daughter was born, she struggled to find child care and ended up buying a day-care facility. She continued to run the facility while working on her teacher certification.
When business expenses began to rise, she sold the business and began teaching at a private middle school. She was just beginning to think about returning home to Paterson when chance struck again. In 2012, UW Bothell announced the launch of a new MFA program in Creative Writing & Poetics.
“I felt in my heart that it was designed for me because I was born a writer,” Queen said. “I felt I had to do it.”
She applied to the program but had also applied to several others. And when she was admitted to a university in Los Angeles, she was ready to send in her enrollment, fearing she hadn’t been accepted to UW Bothell. As chance would again have it, she lacked a stamp and had to wait to mail her enrollment confirmation — and then got a call from UW Bothell the very next day.
“I knew it was the right choice,” she said. “I had a super fantastic experience, and I’m so glad that I went there.”
Your personal best
Arriving at UW Bothell, Queen was particularly excited to work with her adviser, Dr. Jeanne Heuving, a professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and the founder of the MFA program.
“Professor Heuving taught me the difference between great and incredible,” Queen said, adding that Heuving challenged her to put her best work forward in her thesis project. When Queen wrote new work, Heuving would prompt her with the question of whether it stood up to the caliber of her creative nonfiction work, “Fourteen,” which she had previously praised.
A former professor at Montclair State University had previously shared a similar message, telling Queen, “You’re in competition with yourself, and no one else.”
These words have stuck with her, and now, as a teacher herself, she asks her students to strive for excellence in their work. Putting her own spin on the sentiment, Queen tells her high school students to treat their time in the classroom like they’re at Chuck E. Cheese.
“You can come to this place and just play and have a good time and not get any tickets. Or, if you play it well, you get a bunch of tickets that you can trade in for prizes,” she said. “High school is the same. You can come and have a good time — and just leave when you’re done. But if you come here and you earn great grades, which are your tickets, you can trade those in for things like scholarships, a good college and a different trajectory for your life.”
Queen often reminds her students of this when giving them a new assignment, telling them to “play to win.” Sometimes, she overhears her students repeating the phrase back to one another.
You can come [to high school] and have a good time — and just leave when you’re done. But if you come here and you earn great grades, which are your tickets, you can trade those in for things like scholarships, a good college and a different trajectory for your life.
Talena Lachelle Queen, Master of Fine Arts ’14
Homecoming successes
Queen taught in Seattle following her graduation in 2014 then decided it was time to return to her hometown where she has continued teaching. In 2018, she became Paterson’s first poet laureate.
On a hot summer day that August, Queen said she had a vision for what she wanted her legacy as the poet laureate to be and an idea struck.
“I had this clear message to have a poetry festival in October. My first thought was that it was too soon, but I know better than to argue with the ancestors,” she said. “I’ve learned to be obedient, even though I was totally overwhelmed.”
Now in its seventh year, the festival has grown to serve not only Paterson but all of Passaic County. October has also since been dubbed Paterson Poetry Month.
In her role, Queen uses her nonprofit organization, Word Seed Inc., to bring poetry and reading to the community she serves in a number of ways, from free little libraries around the city to a virtual speaker series. The series was born during the pandemic and invites people to send in their poems to be read to a live virtual audience by professional poets.
She also enjoys supporting the community in other ways — such as hosting Kwanzaa or giving out turkeys for Thanksgiving — and working to bring awareness to important issues through her work. “I like to say that I am an ‘artivist,’ a person who is an activist that advocates through art,” she said. “I’m trying to make contributions to leave the right kind of legacy.”
Gumption and bravery
Looking back on her journey, Queen is filled with gratitude for her younger herself in recognizing opportunities as they came and being open to her own inner voice and the wisdom of her ancestors.
For fine arts students in particular, she said, there’s no other way to be.
“MFA students need to take chances. Often, they’re getting messages from people in their lives who might not be as supportive as my family,” she said. “You have to have the gumption to do what you want. There will be people asking how you will make money. You need to be brave and to know that it’s OK to do the things you want to do.
Her advice for others starting on their own educational or poetic journey? “See it through. Learn as much as you can, cast a wide net and take a chance.”
Watch this PBS interview featuring Talena Lachelle Queen in which she shares her passion for poetry and how it can be used to educate and empower students.
