c/o 2022
Oscar Lopez
Hometown: McAllen, TX
College: Timothy Dwight
Oscar was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. His writing is inspired by his hometown, the changing seasons, and his Mexican heritage. He doesn’t believe in sleep, but he does believe in the healing power of a cup of coffee and a plate of Marias cookies.
c/o 2023
Kinsale Hueston
Hometown: Corona del Mar, CA
College: Timothy Dwight
Kinsale is from SoCal and if her skater boy vibes weren’t enough to prove that to you, her favorite genre is 90s alt-rap & she has middle part bangs. When she’s not scootering around campus, she loves writing about her family, Indigenous feminisms, and Twilight, probably.
Logan Klutse
Hometown: Lakewood, CO
College: Silliman
Logan wears lots of below-average button-downs, sometimes unironically. Buying him food will also buy his friendship. He loves the Nicki Minaj quote ‘Don’t accept the pickle juice,’ because he thinks it’s important not to settle, and also because it’s good that an icon like her dislikes pickles. They’re disgusting. That’s way too much sodium.
Caitlyn Clark
Hometown: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
College: Pierson
Caitlyn became the youngest person to hold the title of Teen Poetry Slam Grand Champion at age 14. She went on to represent the Bay Area at Brave New Voices. Her work has been published in the Bay Area Youth Anthology and Straight Up: an Intergenerational LBTQ+ Anthology. She likes to aerial pole dance in her free time.
Amma Otchere
Hometown: Menomonee Falls, WI
College: Davenport
Amma is passionate about family, Ghanaian-Nigerian jollof rice discourse and taking naps in moving vehicles. She is from the best state in the Midwest (sorry Forrest!). If you see her on campus, don’t ask her how she’s doing because she doesn’t know the answer, either.
Cassidy Arrington
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
College: Silliman
Cassidy focused on slam for much of her youth. She enjoys quality belly laughs, checking out the stars, and inserting ‘jawn’ into places you never knew it could fit. If you catch some of her poetry, who knows? You might that that jawn go hard.
Baylina Pu
Hometown: Charlottesville, VA
College: Grace Hopper
Baylina likes secret libraries and making dad jokes. The reason for her complicated relationship with squirrels is her self-proclaimed ‘bird energy.’ Some other interests include taking inordinate amounts of pics of the sky, saying, ‘that’s rough buddy,’ and simply vibing.
Elena Castro
Hometown: Greenville, SC
College: Branford
Elena cannot stop thinking about Kusama mirrors. Or small birds. Or papayas. Really, her mind is filled at all times with things that are terracotta-colored, filled with light, and able to be scooped with a soup spoon.
c/o 2024
Forrest LaPrade
Hometown: Des Moines, IA
College: Branford
Forrest is from the gem city of the Midwest, insurance capital of the nation. In his free time, he enjoys listening to Pitbull, wearing his Pitbull sweatshirt, and listening to Pitbull while wearing his Pitbull sweatshirt.
Kamiye Runsewe
Hometown: Marriottsville, MD
College: Berkeley
Kamiye is a big fan of looking at trees and fangirling over them. When she isn’t “sing[ing] a sobbing sigh” (as Zora Neale Hurston would say), she likes to people-watch, fast-forward through movies indiscriminately, crochet, and take photos on film. She loves people bigly.
Semilore Ola
Hometown: Orange County, CA
College: Timothy Dwight
Semilore is from OC, but unfortunately is not one of its real housewives. She lurks on Twitter, celebrating magical realism, ’80s art, Noname, and the color yellow. She was a Swedish court jester in a past life, and also a flying bison, as well as a simple Scottish shepherd. She strives to become and feel everything at once.
Laurel Turner
Hometown: Bethany, CT
College: Silliman
Laurel was once told that she had “Emily Dickinson vibes,” and she has recently decided to accept her fate. She is a mathematician by habit and an avid ex-bisexual. Find her pacing around the Silliman courtyard five times clockwise on Tuesday nights. Her favorite cat (she has six) is named Cabbage. Her favorite word is “dusk.”
Lex Schultz
Hometown: Powder Springs, GA
College: Saybrook
Lex is an avid lover of rocks, rock music, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Their favorite places on campus are Kline Geology Laboratory, where they get paid to study earthquakes, and the Native American Cultural Center, where they procrastinate physics homework and steal Cheez-Its. Please listen to their radio show or they’ll cry.
c/o 2025
Nikhe Braiman
Hometown: Brentwood, CA
College: Branford
Nikhe is passionate about deconstructing race, Spike Lee, and reminding people he’s from the Bay Area. He considers himself pretty open-minded and will even extend sympathy to people who believe seafood belongs on pizza. The only Marvel movie he’s seen is Black Panther and he intends to keep it that way. Did he mention he’s from the Bay?
Elishevlyne Eliason
Hometown: Aurora, CA
College: Berkeley
Elishevlyne loves photography, reading the obscenities people write on the walls on the walls of Sterling, and biking down dangerously sloped hills. She is one of seven kids and would like the record to show that never once has she been beat when racing to be first for the shower.
Samuel Getachew
Hometown: Oakland, CA
College: Pierson
Some fun facts about Samuel include: he’s Ethiopian-American, he took a gap year, and moved to New York by himself and won’t ever let anyone hear the end of it, and he’s an only child … but tries really hard not to act like it.
Elyse Thomas
Hometown: Miami, FL
College: Branford
Elyse is from Miami, but has never met Pitbull. Her obsessions include rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, reminding her suitemates of her superior music taste, and writing about the seasons. Elyse’s first words were, “Help me,” and no, no one in her family knows why…
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