CURIOUS CARDINALS TEACHER
Nate Hylton
Nate Hylton is passionate about using the power of words to give a voice to the voiceless. As a proud Brooklyn native, son of a Caribbean single-mom, and member of both Prep For Prep and the Jackie Robinson Foundation, he is dedicated to giving back. Nate is currently a senior at UPenn majoring in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) on a pre-law track. Competing in high school debate on a national level equipped Nate with the tools necessary to secure jobs working on The Hill, a law firm, for various journals and climate campaigns as well as finance jobs at a hedge fund and global banks.
Most often you can find Nate listening to Pop Smoke, working on his spoken word poetry/music project or sports betting across major sports leagues.
My Course
Black Heroes Among Us (Grades: All)
Are you interested in music? Have you ever taken time to examine the metaphors behind rap lyrics? Have you ever been moved by someone’s ability to use words that resonate with your story? In this course, we will create our own poetry to share experimenting with various formats and techniques. Don’t worry if you’re a little hesitant to share at first! I can tell you first hand that usually the poems that feel harder to share, resonate with people the most. From the outset, we’ll work on exposing you to different inspirations that you can draw on to produce a poetic piece. First, we will explore the works of traditional black poets such as Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks before transitioning to contemporary and spoken word poets such as Danez Smith and Claudia Rankine. We will end with an examination of Kendrick Lamar and Big Sean deconstructing why some of their poetic lyrics are so memorable and relatable. (P.S. I’ll share some written work to get the ball moving!)