“The New Guy”: Poet-Athlete Uel On Making His Our Words Our City Debut

Fourth grader Uel is excited for the spotlight. 

The poet-athlete from LaSalle-Backus Elementary School caught the performance bug at DC SCORES’ Westside Slam, and he’s been itching to get back on the poetry stage ever since. 

Soon, he’ll fulfill that dream when he takes center stage for the biggest show of his young life: Our Words Our City. DC SCORES’ premier poetry showcase will see Uel and twelve of his peers from DC SCORES’ enhanced poetry program, the Youth Word Project, step up to the mic alongside Rudy Francisco. 

He will perform alongside one of the biggest names in spoken word poetry in front of hundreds of paying guests. Is he nervous?  

Not really. “I mean, it’s my first time, so I feel excited, happy,” he says. “Feel like everyone’s gonna be like, ‘Hey, who’s that kid?’ And I’m gonna be like, ‘I’m Uel. I’m the new guy!’” 

“It Makes Me Feel Powerful”

“I wanted to go to DC SCORES because it seemed so nice to go there,” Uel says of the after-school soccer, poetry, and service-learning program. “I mean, there’s a lot of stuff I always wanted to try and this is just a new opportunity for me to do other things.”

At this age, Uel says that trying new things is more important than becoming the best at something. In fact, he doesn’t consider himself to be particularly good at soccer. Most of the other boys on the team are a year older than he is. “I don’t run as fast,” he explains. “Like, what am I? I’m a fourth grader, don’t got much stamina.”

“Soccer’s not my go-to,” he adds, “but poetry is my strength.”

Part of the reason Uel likes poetry so much is because his best friends on the LaSalle team like it, too. In fact, Godwin and Nawaf, two of the other poet-athletes performing at Our Words Our City this year, are in the squad. 

But poetry also helps Uel express himself. He says, “It makes me feel excited for new poems. It makes me feel happy, it makes me feel powerful, it makes me feel me.

Imagining A Better World

While Uel might not always keep up with the fifth graders on the field, DC SCORES hasn’t put him off the big kids. 

“I wanted to come [to Youth Word Project] because this was a great opportunity not just to express myself in different ways, but to be more social with other people,” he says. “I get to meet middle schoolers — middle schoolers!”

Uel likes to stress important words or phrases when he talks. His excitement and positivity are infectious: he makes people want to listen to him. 

He gets especially animated when discussing a poem he performed with his LaSalle-Backus teammates at DC SCORES’ Westside Poetry Slam last year. The piece, titled “Women of Worth,” celebrated powerful women of color, including Sonia Sotomayor, Malala Yousafzai, Amanda Gorman, and Kamala Harris.

Creating opportunities for people of all backgrounds to lead just makes sense, he says: “If there was a world where everybody was equal, imagine how much easier it would be!”

Sharing the Spotlight

To Uel, that better world would look a lot like the community he’s already in. 

He loves living in the District. “I like my neighborhood because it was where I was born and raised. It’s where I feel like me,” he says. “D.C., that’s the city. No city better than D.C.”

D.C. is also where his friends are. “Without friends, there’s no one to support you,” he explains. “If you have friends, you can be more independent. It’s easier to have fun.”

In fact, Uel can’t conceptualize a world without his friends. Even when he pictures his Our Words Our City debut, he’s never in the spotlight alone. 

“I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, these are my friends!’” he says to the imaginary crowd, “and then we’re gonna explode the thing because of how good we are!”

Tickets to Our Words Our City are $50 and can be purchased at the Our Words Our City event page.