Spoken-word artist Helina Almonte, of Lynn, likes to describe herself as a “Renaissance woman.” 

“I have a lot of different interests,” Almonte said. “I’m definitely a person that has their hand in a lot of different pots.”

Almonte, an alumna of the Raw Art Works program in Lynn, is a member of the city’s Youth Adolescent Task Force, which was formed by City Councilor-at-Large Nicole McClain. She also has an interest in talent management and said she loves to draw and make video art.  

The 21-year-old poet, who wrote her first spoken-word poem as a freshman at Lynn English High School, said she noticed her love for writing early on. 

“I’ve always been a really talkative and outspoken person, I was always on the morning news at school… I loved being in front of the camera and just talking. And I’ve always really just had a way with words,” Almonte said. “In school, I have a double major of communication and art, so I feel like spoken-word poetry just kind of feels like the perfect intersection between communication and art.”

Almonte, a junior at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said her writing style comes straight from the soul.

“I would describe my writing as very emotional and heartfelt, so a lot of the times when I’m writing, it comes from a moment where I’m feeling overwhelmed with emotion, so I’ll take my pen out or take my notes app on my phone and just start writing,” she said. 

A lot of her writing explores her experiences as a first-generation Dominican-American woman.

“There’s a lot of feelings of diffusion and separation and a lot of different things that come with that identity,” she said. 

Almonte added that a great deal of her poems focus on the transition to adulthood.

“There’s a lot of changes that I’m going through right now, as we all do when we’re coming of age. I kind of just like to document my life and put it in a poetic way,” she said. 

Growing up in Lynn, Almonte said she views the city’s diversity as a privilege and a source of inspiration. 

“There are so many people that understand me in terms of my identity, and it’s also a really good opportunity to learn about a lot of different people, and some people don’t get that opportunity,” she said.

Almonte said she wants to be able to make a living from her creations, and she feels the most satisfied when she gets to help others.

Her long-term goals include being a talk-show host and appearing in a performance with Button Poetry, a Minneapolis-based poetry company that is known for its viral videos of slam-poetry performances. 

“That would be the biggest full-circle moment,” Almonte said. 

To get in the zone, Almonte said her routine is sporadic. At the recent Black Excellence Display, where she delivered a spoken-word poem at City Hall, her grandmother was her source of inspiration. 

“I was just thinking about her life and the sacrifices she made… I wanted to cry… that’s how that came about,” she said. 

“My family is one of my biggest inspirations, always,” she added. “We’re really close knit. I come from a matriarchal family, my family is all women.”

Almonte said there’s a lot of research that goes into her writing, which she said helps her accumulate the knowledge she needs to cover certain topics and determine the words that are best suited for her poems.

She said that some of the poems she performs are still works in progress. 

“With any art it’s continuous… just because you perform something doesn’t mean it’s solidified and has to stay that way forever,” she said. 

She is also inspired by nature and rap music. She enjoys taking walks in the woods and speaking out loud to the trees, which she said is “really freeing.”

“With being an artist, you kind of have to observe the world around you,” Almonte said. “You have to be able to soak things in.”

Almonte said that her advice for anyone pursuing poetry is to trust whatever comes out of their creative process.

“Like with anything, it’s a muscle,” Almonte said. “You have to exercise that, find what works for you, talk to yourself in the mirror, talk to other people. When you’re having conversations, find ways that you can speak strongly and amplify your voice so that you’re already actively practicing it in your day-to-day rituals.”