MEET ARIANA
Ariana Lee (she/her/她) is a Taiwanese and Chinese American writer from Houston, TX. She is an inaugural Public Poets Fellow with Youth Speaks and has previously served as the 2022-2023 Houston Youth Poet Laureate. She is a two-time member of Meta4 Houston, the youth slam poetry team ranked #1 at Brave New Voices 2023. In recognition of their being the first team from Houston to win the title, the City of Houston proclaimed August 15th, 2023 as Meta4 Houston Day. 
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Lee has written and performed original work for NASA; Stop AAPI Hate; the NCAA Men's Final Four Legacy Project presented by Degree; the Aspen Institute; choreographer Sorah Yang; the Houston Mayor's Office, and more. The Emerging Writers Winner from Button Poetry's 2024 Video contest, she is also a 2024 YoungArts Winner in spoken word and poetry. Lee has opened for U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón and is honored with a Certificate of Congressional Recognition and a proclamation of September 9th, 2023 as Ariana Lee Day in the City of Houston.
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She has curated anthologies for Kundiman South and the International Human Rights Art Movement, and taught writing workshops in Texas and California. Her work appears in or is forthcoming in Poetry, The Offing, Button Poetry, Hanging Loose, and elsewhere.
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She is a student at Stanford University.
Select Experience
Partners
NASA Johnson Space Center
Stop AAPI Hate
Youth Speaks
Writers in the Schools
Get Lit - Words Ignite
Together Women Rise
Philanthropy Together
The Battery SF
Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice
Asia Society Texas Center
The Aspen Institute
Climate Justice Museum
March for Our Lives Houston
Children's Museum Houston
Inprint Houston
Houston Mayor's Office
Houston Parks Board
Houston Public Library
Arts Connect Houston
Poetry International Festival 2024 (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
​NCAA Men’s Final Four Legacy Project Presented by Degree (Houston, TX)
Wait What: Masters of Scale Summit 2024 (San Francisco, CA)
Earthtones Environmental Justice Festival (Stanford, CA)
Museum as Muse: Poetry at the Anderson Collection (Stanford, CA)
Get Lit Prose Bowl (Los Angeles, CA)
Freedom Over Texas 2023 4th of July Show (Houston, TX)
Good Times 2023 (San Mateo, CA)
Earth Day HTX (Houston, TX)
Exploring the World of Asian American Poets (Houston, Texas)
Black is Primary Festival featuring Rudy Francisco (Houston, TX)
Grand Slam with America’s Got Talent Winner Brandon Leake (Galveston, TX)
BIPOC Book Fest (Houston, TX)
Performances
"Our sun and our moon and our Earth—
Three dots like an ellipsis
An eclipse is when they align
And we behold a golden “silver lining”
A ring of fire in the sky.
We see, in this spotlighted shadow,
The brilliance of darkness.
We’re reminded, in this handful of minutes,
Of the greater, celestial bodies"
*Excerpt from Ariana's poem "Ring of Fire" performed at NASA's Johnson Space Center for the 2023 Annular Eclipse
