Through a series of line breaks and stanzas, powerful diction and a purposeful rhyme scheme, an important message rises to the surface.
For poet Nagasriya Ramisetty, a member of the 2025-26 JustArts Fellows cohort, poems are a means of creating awareness for a cultural stigma that resonates with her.
Ramisetty is a junior in the W.A. Franke Honors College completing a BS in Physiology and Medical Sciences in the College of Medicine and a BA in Applied Humanities in the College of Humanities.
Her JustArts project, “bit·ter·sweet,” addresses mental health stigma among Asian Americans, a community that reports among the highest needs for mental healthcare services and resources. Sriya will engage audiences in new ways of hearing, feeling, and thinking about mental health by creating an original poetry and art collection that weaves together statistical public health research with more humanizing, personal stories collected through interviews.
- The JustArts Presentations and Celebration is Feb. 27 at the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre, where Ramisetty will discuss their projects.
- “bit-ter-sweet,” a poetry reading and art exhibition is April 17 at the Health Science Innovation Building. Register Now.
Research through a new medium
The collection’s theme centers around Asian American mental health pressures, something she has been passionate about since her early high school years.
“Coming back to school after COVID in my junior year of high school, it was abundantly clear that there was a huge lack of mental health infrastructure,” she said. “Given the demographic of the students there, a lot of students didn’t have the opportunity to seek care outside of school and because of that cultural stigma, the school environment became a huge point of contention in terms of contributing to potential stress in students’ lives with the lack of support systems at school.”
After lobbying her school’s administration and collecting survey data from her peers, her passion continued into university. Following her year-long research study on Asian American mental health pressures, Ramisetty drew upon her data and personal reflections to transform that data into a piece of art.
“I was analyzing, through a comprehensive literature view, the specific nuanced cultural interpretations and cultural beliefs that contributed to mental health stigma on an individual level,” she said. “That entire time, I was writing poetry on my own mental health, and I wanted to expand that into a poetry collection and art exhibition.”
Student Voices
Within her own poetic reflections, her goal is to capture the nuances of mental health among other Asian Americans, using student voices to lead the narrative. She collaborated with The Poetry Center, the Honors College, and the Health Sciences department for her project, which includes student interviews surrounding themes related to Asian American mental health.
“I wanted to make sure that there was dialogue happening between people that were receiving this information about mental health universities and the people actually experiencing it,” she said. “I care a lot about humanizing narratives within the community.”
While integrating these student voices in the poetry, Ramisetty added another key element to her project.
Greek mythology.
“I realized that the Greeks have such a unique relationship with tragedy, the way that they discuss struggle in the making of a hero, and what stories are worth telling through struggle and pain,” she said, recounting her study abroad experience in Greece.
“That had a lot of parallels that carried over to the discussion of the American dream, Asian American exceptionalism and the model minority myth in my poetry collection, which is a major focus of the writing overall.”
The romanticization of struggle is a theme that is carried throughout her collection.
Finding identity
For her first poetry collection, Ramisetty leaned on the support of her JustArts mentors and fellows.
“On a personal level, being a part of the JustArts’ cohort has validated to me and my own identity that I am an artist and a poet,” she said. “The typical title I use when I introduce myself is that I am a pre-medicine student. It’s been helpful to recognize to myself that through this fellowship and through the kind of work that I’m doing, I am an artist, a poet, I am creative and I don’t need to box myself into one label.”
Her self-discovery through these creative processes has been life changing, challenging her to consider how art can further enhance her studies.
“I’m now considering graduate programs that are centered around narrative medicine and can further my work in creative writing at the intersection of medicine, mental health and public health narratives,” she said.
Public Reading
She will read her poetry and present her artwork at “bit·ter·sweet” at the Health Sciences Innovation building on April 17 (5-7p) and hopes to spur a larger conversation on mental health.
“I’m hoping that this collection offers an opportunity for people to reflect vulnerably on their own experiences and engage in dialogue about how we can support communities with culturally sensitive mental health care resources,” she said.
The JustArts Fellowship for Student Leaders in the Arts invites students to design, develop, and complete projects that enhance access to meaningful arts experiences. Fellows identify challenges, propose creative solutions, and collaborate with peers and Arizona Arts mentors to bring their vision to life.