Stephanie Pacheco’s ‘Dear CUNY’ Poem Highlights University’s Uniqueness
The Launch Kicks Off National Poetry Month Across the University
Stephanie Pacheco poses outside of Borough of Manhattan Community College.
The City University of New York today unveiled “Dear CUNY,” a video featuring a poem written by the 2024-25 National Youth Poet Laureate Stephanie Pacheco, in commemoration of National Poetry Month. CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez joined the CUNY student on a visit to Queensborough Community College to launch the poem and share her overall experience as a successful poet. Her poem depicts the University’s unique and ever-present influence on New York City as well as its ability to help individuals from all walks of life achieve their dreams.
CUNY produced a one-minute video excerpt of the poem powerfully read by Pacheco. The full poem can be read here.
“There is no better way to have begun National Poetry Month than with this beautiful work of poetry that perfectly illustrates the great impact that CUNY has across New York,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “We are incredibly proud of our very own Stephanie Pacheco, whose talent has elevated her to be the nation’s leading youth poet, and look forward to a month that will undoubtedly bring to light the many poetic voices that are connected to our University community.”
“Everywhere I turn, every building is a student, every train car is a classroom,” Pacheco writes in the poem. “But at least the only loan I’ve acquired is at my school library … To you all, who remind me to dream just like our city lights.”
Pacheco studies writing and literature at Borough of Manhattan Community College. She has previously served as the 2023 New York City Youth Poet Laureate and is also the first-ever New York State Youth Poet Laureate.
“CUNY taught me there was room enough for all of us,” said Pacheco. “I sat down with classmates that were twice my age, parents who had kids that were my age, people who took breaks from school and decided to come back. Every single one of us is special and that is some of what I wanted to uplift.”
Pacheco is the eighth recipient of the National Youth Poet Laureate award, joining notable figures such as Amanda Gorman. Gorman, the first laureate named in 2017, gained recognition in 2021 after delivering her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration. The National Youth Poet Laureate is an annual honor that celebrates youth at the intersection of artistic excellence and civic engagement.
A University of Poets
With her work, Pacheco continues to uphold CUNY’s acclaimed legacy with poetry. Throughout the years, there have been several iconic poets who hail from CUNY, including Sonia Sanchez, a Hunter College alumna and pioneering figure in the Black Arts Movement; Queens College Distinguished Professor Kimiko Hahn, a well-lauded poet who received a Guggenheim Fellowship and won an American Book Award; and Ocean Vuong, a Brooklyn College graduate who is the author of The New York Times bestselling poetry collection “Time is a Mother.”
CUNY’s roster of revered poets also includes two recipients of the Pulitzer Prize. In 2015, Gregory Pardlo, then a Graduate Center doctoral candidate, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “Digest,” a collection of poems focused on the meaning of American identity. In 2017, Tyehimba Jess, a Distinguished Professor at the College of Staten Island, received the Pulitzer for “Olio,” a book of poems highlighting early Black musicians who were mostly unrecorded despite acting as trailblazers in numerous musical genres during the 19th century.
The New York Times coined CUNY as “Poetry U” because of the University’s reputation in training up-and-coming poets.
As Pacheco reflects on her poem, she is passionate about the importance of young people in poetry and the arts.
“If you’re an aspiring poet, you’re probably already a poet,” said Pacheco. “Poetry feels grander than me, grander than us, and I feel we’d be doing a disservice if we just say it’s a bunch of words on a page. If you are able to create your own language, you’re able to craft your story brick by brick.”
In further celebration of National Poetry Month, Hostos Community College will host a “Peace and Poetry” event on April 22, where attendees from the community will read aloud poetry with a theme of unity.
The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving nearly 240,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 50,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “genius” grants. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background. To learn more about CUNY, visit https://www.cuny.edu.
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