Mya LaGrange is not your average senior in high school. The Destrehan High School student is involved in numerous media projects. In addition to having a children’s book in the process of being illustrated she has filmed a documentary for her senior project and has now released a book of poems she wrote throughout her high school career named Thoughts of Mya.
“It’s basically a compilation of poetry that I’ve written over the course of four years in high school,” says LaGrange. “It’s not everything I’ve written and I definitely say it shows the evolution of my writing because there are some poems in it that are a little bit trivial and juvenile, but the large number of poems do hold a lot of substance and a lot of depth.”
The Destrehan High School student is graduating this year, but she already knows what she wants to do with the rest of her life. She wants to be a broadcast journalist and will be enrolling at the University of Missouri this fall where she received recognition as a Brooks Scholar and a member of the university’s honors college with advanced placement status. LaGrange will be double majoring in Journalism and Political Science. Thoughts of Mya includes a poem she wrote about finding her career path.
“There is one poem in there I don’t know if it’s my favorite poem, but it does mean a lot to me. It’s called what is to become of me,” LaGrange said. “I basically wrote it when I first realized I wanted to become a journalist, which was a really long time ago and before that period I hadn’t been hit with the epiphany of what I wanted to do with my life. I
“It’s really about a person traveling and they run into all these people and they share their career path and things like that in so many words and then being left with a sense of oblivion as to that, just not knowing. So I wrote that one right before I figured out I wanted to go into journalism.”
Named by her mother, Avis LaGrange, after well-known poetess Maya Angelou it seems that she may have been fated to be a writer.
“I named Mya after Dr. Mya Angelou because I am big fan of hers and we read a lot of her things and such and it’s just interesting that Mya kind of landed in that same vein,” Avis said. “So it’s kind of come full circle for her with this.”
Avis said she is very proud of hers daughters accomplishments.
“I guess for me at first when I first noticed I guess Mya might have been about 10 or 11 and given what she was asked to write about and she’s like ‘mom look at this’ and I asked “Did you write this?’ and that’s kind of how I got to watch and learn that yes she can write really, really well,” Avis said. “She has always done really well on her standardized tests as far as the commands of the English language and grammar. She has always been exceptional in that regard and I think that shows in her book.”
Avis said Mya has always been more serious than other kids her age and that it shows in her writing.
“Where some kids may be watching cartoons and comedy Mya is watching CNN and MSNBC and all of these kinds of things and I think a lot of it is reflective in the thought that she put into her topics in the book,” Avis said. “Even a piece that’s essentially about peer pressure and school and how people wear masks and refuse to be themselves when you are in a high school settings and things like that and how important it is to be yourself.”
Mya will be signing her poetry books at the Farmers Market on May 30 (St. Charles Plaza) from 3 p.m.-6 p.m.
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