Josie Nabhan-Warren of Iowa City West High School has been named the 2026-2027 Iowa Student Poet Ambassador (ISPA), an annual honor bestowed on an exceptional young poet in the state. The West High junior will be officially inaugurated as the new ambassador in the State Law Library at the Iowa Capitol on Friday at 10 a.m.,
Nabhan-Warren takes up her role as poet ambassador as the country is marking the 30th anniversary of National Poetry Month.
The Iowa Student Poet Ambassador program is a collaboration between the University of Iowa’s Office of Community Engagement, the State Library of Iowa, the Iowa Poet Laureate Program, and several arts-focused nonprofits around the state.
Nabhan-Warren is the sixth student to earn this recognition, and the second from Iowa City’s West High School (Shreya Khullar, then a junior at West High, was the inaugural ambassador for the 2021-2022 school year.) As part of her duties, Nabhan-Warren will spend the next year promoting appreciation for poetry and literature, amplifying voices of young Iowans and encouraging students statewide to express themselves creatively.
Some of the things Josie Nabhan-Warren loves most about poetry include its versatility and the way it connects humanity across cultures and time periods.
“It’s a simple way of showing the complex feelings that all people feel. It can be really short and sweet but super powerful and all you need to do is find the right words and the right audience and people will feel touched by it,” Nabhan-Warren told Little Village. “I think it’s a really special thing that all people share.”
That shared connection extends beyond poets and people who routinely read poetry, she believes.
“I feel like people who aren’t writers are more likely to write a poem about their life than they are to write a short story or a book. So I believe it’s special that you don’t have to know a lot about writing to write poetry,” she said. “You just need to know a lot about life and experience it.”
Nabhan-Warren enjoys describing her emotions in abstract ways and using imagery, alliteration and metaphors in her poetry. She says that although she can’t always get her poems to rhyme, she likes to make them fun and colorful with word play and various literary devices.
Nabhan-Warren submitted two poems, “The 4th” and “Tell Me,” along with a short story called “Susan’s Life of Sevens,” in her application for the ISPA.
Last fall in her Creative Writing class, Nabhan-Warren took the opportunity to further explore writing, both poetry and prose, and what she enjoys about the process of writing. In that time she wrote “The 4th” and “Susan’s Life of Sevens.”
“My poem about watching the fireworks after ballet class, ‘The 4th,’ is a really nostalgic poem for me,” she said. “It also shows some of my experience and how I translate my emotions into my writing.”
“Susan’s Life of Sevens” is a short story about a woman who life revolves around doing everything exactly seven times. It’s implied that she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but it has a different and particular connection to Nabhan-Warren’s life.
She’s been a volunteer at the All-State Music Festival and was responsible for timing all of the auditions to ensure they were seven minutes long. For six stressful and tiring hours, without any breaks, she timed people, measuring their performances in seven-minute increments, over and over.
While she was doing this, Nabhan-Warren remembered an idea she’d heard about: when you die, your brain stays active for seven minutes and plays memories of your life. From this, “Susan’s Life of Sevens” was born. The short story was published by Grapevine, West High School’s student-run literary magazine.
Nabhan-Warren’s poem “Tell Me” was a Christmas present to her mother. The heartfelt poem about conversing with loved ones was selected for inclusion in the anthology American High School Poets: In Like A Lamb 2026.
“I write a lot for my family. That’s what motivates me the most,” Nabhan-Warren said. “I like to make stuff for the people that I love.”
Today, with everything that is going on in the world, Nabhan-Warren especially believes in the importance of poetry and values how it can bring people together.
“Poetry is a simple way of communicating what every human wants. It’s a way of – like, it’s gonna sound corny, but – translating humanity to each other in ways that we can understand, because everybody has emotions, everybody has experiences. And I think poetry is just a human tool,” she explained. “We can see each other through it, to share our feelings.”
As the new ISPA, Nabhan-Warren will attend events and interact with the community to promote the power of poetry. This June, via Zoom, she will participate in All Iowa Reads. In October she will be featured as a special guest at Poetry in Public, part of the Iowa City Book Festival.
In early November, Nabhan-Warren will be traveling to Perry to be part of Poetry on the Prairie, hosted by the Perry Public Library, and she’ll also be at Mic Check Poetry Fest in Iowa City.
In addition to her poetry and classes, Nabhan-Warren is busy with other things at West High. her school. As a freshman and sophomore, she was involved in journalism. She’s now part of the staff of Grapevine. She active in varsity show choir and varsity cheerleading, as well. However, she plans on prioritizing her responsibilities as the ISPA this upcoming school year.
“I’ll just go to as many events as possible. And [being the Iowa Student Poet Ambassador] will be on the top of my list of priorities,” Nabhan-Warren said. “Above cheerleading and show choir too, because it’s only a year-long thing, and I really want to make the most of it.”
