Seeing life inside a Ugandan refugee camp. Facing discrimination as a Black woman. Building the strength to hold one’s head high.

Kaitlyn Lubega says she channels hardships like these into her poetry performances, transforming the pain of humanity into rhyme and cadence.

The effort paid off in early May when Lubega, a recent graduate of United World College-USA in Montezuma, earned third place in the Poetry Out Loud National Finals in Washington. She competed against 54 others from across the United States.

It was her second time representing New Mexico in the national competition, after winning both the 2024 and 2025 state championships. But for her second and higher-placing national performance, she enjoyed herself more and felt a deeper connection to the experiences that inform her p

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