In this episode, two young Black artists revisit memories to grapple with how they are seen by others, and how they see themselves.

"Letters to a Young Poet" is one of four episodes of Best of the Best (2020), a nationally broadcast radio special produced each year by Third Coast. Each of episode of the series features winning stories from the 20th annual Third Coast / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition.

How to Remember, produced by Axel Kacoutié and edited by Eleanor McDowall for Short Cuts from BBC Radio 4.

Winner of the 2020 Best Documentary: Gold Award

This story is sonically inspired by producer Axel Kacoutié's travels to his home country of Côte d'Ivoire, where belonging and authenticity dominated his mind. This work is an attempt to reconcile and accept (in seven steps/scenes) all the parts of he’s either wrongly internalized or intuitively known to be true. 

Borders Between Us, produced by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr. and Jay Allison for Transom.org.

Winner of the 2020 Best Documentary: Silver Award

Saidu Tejan-Thomas is a young poet. For a long time, he had a story he needed to tell: an homage and apology to his mother. It's a tragic love story driven by the tangled search for a better life. It's personal for sure, but set against the universal perils of immigration - in Saidu's case, from Sierra Leone in West Africa - but by extension, from anywhere. Borders Between Us uses Saidu's poems as narrative drivers, reveals, and resolutions. These are not easy tasks for poems.

This episode of Best of the Best was produced by Isabel Vázquez.

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