MADELINE ALIAH

ARTIST STATEMENT

I have used language without restraint since I was a toddler strapped in a shopping cart, using my prodigious vocabulary and extensive imagination to draw in an audience. Fascinated by the human experiences we don’t hear about, I write to imagine the inner lives of misunderstood individuals. A case in point, I received an honorable mention in the 2020 Bookshop Santa Cruz Young Writer’s Contest for “Creature’s Best Friend,” a collection of diary entries by Frankenstein’s creature as he acquires an emotional therapy dog. I write horror and speculative fiction to explore family dysfunction and intergenerational trauma.

 

As a transfem teen, I use the tight structures of poetry to express my struggles with gender dysphoria and social identity as a biracial South Asian woman. In my debut chapbook, This Is My Body: Poems by a Teen Transfem (Jamii Press 2024), I trace my journey from dissociation to empowerment as I transition from boy to woman. I hope to use my story to inspire others of all genders to break free of the molds that confine them.

 

To quote Watsonville Poet Laureate, Bob Gómez, “Madeline’s gift to us is her ability to examine her interior life in a way that anyone who has experienced deep conflicts of self-definition can relate to. Her work is a harbinger of a new era in which we embrace the true diversity of the human experience. She, who is irrepressible in the face of an oppressive society, brings a voice of unapologetic power into the public square. She is a dragon spirit who sees what the rest of us cannot see, bringing soft rain and thunderous rage, unbound, fierce, indomitable.”

 

MADELINE ALIAH – BIO
Madeline Aliah (she/her) is an 18-year-old trans fem poet who has read and published locally since age 11. Her debut chapbook, This Is My Body: Poems by a Teen Trans Fem was released in January 2024, just shy of her 18th birthday. Her TEDx Santa Cruz Talk, “Beyond the Safe Space” gave her a chance to reach a global audience. She is entering senior year at Cypress High School where she is actively involved in outreach to educators about the importance of an inclusive school culture.

 

A vanguard on the social justice front, she was elected to the local Queer Trans Youth Council for 2023 - 2024, where she worked with other teens on social justice initiatives and wrote a film to be screened for educators called Pronouns in the Wild. She was selected as an emcee for the 2024 Queer Youth Leadership Award where she was also one of four awardees. In addition to her book launches and TEDx Talk, Madeline has spoken at Pride flag-raising ceremonies in both Watsonville and Santa Cruz. She has spoken as a panelist for United Against Hate Week and is scheduled to speak as a panelist this fall for Banned Book Week and at the Watsonville Gender Summit.

 

Madeline was appointed to the inaugural Santa Cruz Youth Poet Laureate Council. This fall, she will lead poetry workshops for teens at the Garfield Park Library. She was a recipient of the Santa Cruz County Parks 2023 Spotlight Award for Poetry and Prose and is a two-time winner of the Watsonville Public Library poetry contest, high school category. She regularly presents her poetry at the MAH with the Santa Cruz Writers of Color Collective. She is proud to bring a youth perspective to artist spaces in hopes of building a more diverse arts community.