If you ever need to locate Samantha Mikita quickly, your best bet is to head to the library. “I can‘t stop reading,” she exclaims. “I read a ton!” She cites Stephen King as her favorite author but she reads anything she can get her hands on. Samantha is currently a freshman at Grand Valley State University where she plans to major in pre-nursing, then return to school to become a nurse practitioner, specializing in respiratory. She loves to help people in any way that she can and believes nursing to be her special calling.
Samantha has been writing poetry since the third grade where she was inspired by none other than Rodney Torreson, her teacher. “Mr. T” told his class to write poetry often, and Samantha enjoyed it so much that she stuck with it through grade school into high school and now into college. She writes poems about a variety of topics but “never the same thing twice!” She likes to write poems about people close to her, her childhood, places she has visited and sad things. However, Samantha is about as far from sad as you can get.
“Sad things to me are when a relative dies, things that have greatly impacted my life” she clarifies.
Whatever topic she decides to write her poems about she conquers completely. She has won numerous awards including first place in the nation in a contest sponsored by the Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA), a bimonthly library journal (2005). One of her poems has also received a judge's Outstanding Merit Award in the Kent County Poetry contest in 2005 and was published in the magazine Voices. In addition, she received two judge's Choice Awards in a fine arts contest at her school in 2006 and the judges Outstanding Merit Award in 2007. Two of Samantha’s poems have also been published in the Puck Review in 2005, and recently she has had three poems appear in three Teen Ink 2007 publications.
It’s truly amazing to think of all the talent that is bottled up in this one young poet. Her poems are inspired by common occurrences in her everyday life and by some uncommon methods; she enjoys using a 101 questions book to get her thinking about topics to write about. Her favorite places to write are either in her bedroom or at Schuler Books & Music, where she is in a poetry group. Of all the poems she has written, her favorite so far is “When My Feelings Fall into Low Tide,” a poem about her boyfriend Josiah taking her to the beach. Another poem that she is proud of is “Visiting Grandpa Paul’s Grave,” an emotional poem that anyone who has lost a relative can relate to.
Samantha is an inspiring poet and I feel extremely lucky that I have been able to write poetry with her for many years. Her poems will continue to win awards and perhaps if she tries hard enough, she can attain the status of her poetry idols Ted Kooser and Gary Soto.