“I Am Hip Hop”: How Elementary Schooler Carter Sewell Became a Poetry Powerhouse

Carter Sewell is an unlikely poetry star. For one thing, she’s an elementary schooler halfway through the 5th grade. For another, until recently, she thought poetry was “old timey and, like, really weird.”

Yet, at just 11 years old, Carter has cemented herself as one of the rising stars of DC’s poetry scene. She has performed at numerous prestigious venues across the city, written for the sports storytelling platform Goal Click, and, most recently, had her poetry featured on a Grammy-nominated album.

So, how did Carter become a poetry powerhouse? It started with a soccer ball. 

“Poetry Is Any Story”

Carter is one of more than 3,500 poet-athletes who participate in DC SCORES’ award-winning after-school soccer, poetry, and service-learning program. 

DC SCORES launched programming at Carter’s school, Ward 4’s Barnard Elementary, in 2013. When she was in the second grade, Carter and some friends decided they wanted to play soccer and signed up for DC SCORES. “At that point, I didn’t really know about the going on stage and having to perform a poem. I just thought it was a soccer program,” she admits. 

When her coaches informed the squad at their first practice that they would also be writing poetry, Carter was skeptical. In her mind, the art form was all weird metaphors and dusty books, far removed from her experience as a young person growing up in DC. “I just had no connection to it,” she says. 

Yet, as she progressed through the poetry curriculum with her coaches and DC SCORES poetry specialists, she began to fall in love with spoken word. 

“It doesn’t have to be ye olde and that kind of stuff. It can be anything. Just like how you feel, what’s going on around you,” she says. “Poetry is just any story.”

Carter likes to tell her own story through poetry. Right now, she says she is writing a lot about how political events in DC and around the world make her feel and exploring aspects of her own identity. “Like my skin tone, like me being mixed and people sometimes judging me a little bit,” she explains. “It definitely makes me feel free to express all my feelings and not just keep them pushed aside.” 

A Supportive Community

In 2023, Carter became the youngest-ever poet-athlete to perform at Our Words Our City, DC SCORES’ premier poetry showcase. Every year, participants in the Youth WORD Project, DC SCORES’ enhanced writing program, take to the stage at Our Words Our City to perform alongside some of the top poets in DC. 

That first year, Carter and her fellow Youth WORD participants shared the spotlight with New York Times-bestselling author, Clint Smith. Since then, she’s been on the same billing as MacArthur Fellow Jason Reynolds and National Slam Champion Rudy Francisco. 

Despite her seasoned performer status, Carter still gets nervous on stage. (“It’s like the opposite of shivers down your spine, where you get really hot!”) But she always knows she has a deeply supportive audience in the crowd. 

She credits numerous mentors with supporting her and helping her grow her confidence. DC SCORES staff members Tatiana Figueroa Ramírez and Zarea Boyde, who helped hone her writing and performance skills. Her Barnard coaches Shay and Shanice Blanchard and Kashaun Brown, who she says are “amazing people.” And her mom and dad, Beth Leone and Robert Sewell, who attend all her soccer matches and poetry events to cheer her on. 

“My mom and dad really support me a lot,” says Carter. “They are always the loudest cheering on the field. My dad is sometimes a very quiet person, but he is the one that’s like, ‘Yeah! Go!’ and it’s just amazing.”

“They’re just very supportive people,” she adds. “They are probably the best parents that I could ever ask for.”

Collaborating with a Grammy Nominee

Her parents have a lot to be proud of. In 2025 alone, Carter has performed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, at DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Art All Night, and for members of The House at 1229, a civic organization for accomplished women. 

Her latest project? A Grammy-nominated album. 

When Carter first developed a passion for poetry, her mom took her to see a movie featuring Richmond-based rapper and poet, Donnie Shaquan Lewis, who performs under the moniker Mad Skillz. The pair chatted with the artist after the show, and Carter shared that she was an aspiring writer herself. Lewis kept in touch with the family. 

This year, when he was creating his latest album “Words for Days Vol. 1,” Lewis reached out to ask Carter if she’d be willing to share her poetry on the album. “I immediately responded yes,” she says. 

The track, “Carter’s Interlude,”  conjures up a chance encounter between Carter and Lewis on a busy DC street. Carter insists the rapper include her on the record before dropping a rendition of “I Am Hip-Hop,” the very first poem she performed at Our Words Our City. 

Carter recalls recording the track in the basement of a neighbor, a musician with an at-home studio: “He created this really cool setup and the microphone was like nothing I’ve ever seen before!” Just when they’d finished the session, one of DC’s notorious summer storms cut power to the house. “We were so scared it hadn’t saved…it was a crazy experience,” says Carter. 

Finding Her Safe Space

Carter hopes the memorable session will not be the last time she creates her own work in a studio: her dream is to be a performer, “an actress or a singer or in the movie business.”

“I feel like DC SCORES has definitely upped my confidence on stage and definitely put me in rooms that I could never have been in without them,” she says. 

But right now, she’s most grateful for the friends and memories she is creating in the program. She loves Fall Frenzy, DC SCORES’ annual fall soccer tournament and community festival, and she enjoys developing her soccer skills. (“I’ve definitely gotten better since second grade. I could barely kick the ball, I remember I almost fell on the ball and now I can dribble and I can pass and I can shoot!”)

And, as she continues to expand her horizons, poetry is always an outlet for processing new feelings and ideas. “There are a lot of things, a lot of ideas that me and everyone, probably everyone has,” she says. “Poetry is giving me a safe space where I can express all those feelings and no one’s going to judge me about them.”

Check out Carter’s video profile on our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QXbaw2Bdtg