2024 Call for Poetry
We, at Diverse Verse, believe that even in the most dire moments, poetry has a purpose.
This April, Diverse Verse launched its first annual call for poetry written by young poets, on the theme of hope. At a time when there is so much grief and violence in the world, it filled us with joy to read the many moving and thoughtful submissions we received. We were also very gratified by the sheer volume of the submissions.
Our sincere thanks to every adult who supported this effort by submitting a young person's work - we are grateful and we look forward to receiving submissions from you again, as this call will be an annual feature.
To every young person who sent in a poem, we want you to know that each poem was read and treasured. Unfortunately, we don't have space to publish all the entries, and so we have chosen 3 to highlight, within each age category. If yours is not one of the poems below, please rest assured that we are incredibly honored that you shared your work with us, and we hope with every fiber of our being that you will keep writing and that you will submit your poetry to us in the years to come.
Judging anything - especially poetry - is a very subjective process. Our judges, Nadine Pinede (elementary and high school) and Arya Shahi (middle school) expressed sincere regret that they could not reward every effort, but we are very pleased to share the names of the poets whose work stood out this year. Our heartiest congratulations to them.
Winner, Elementary School Division
Eve K., “Summit”
Honorees, Elementary School Division
Annika T., “Sometimes"
Adithi S., “Hope"
Winner, Middle School Division
Zion J., “A Ladder with a Thousand Rungs”
Honorees, Middle School Division
Jodha D., “Hope”
Angela Q. “Hope, Hope, Hope…”
Winner, High School Division
Shreya K. “Raindrops make Rainbows”
Honorees, High School Division
Hilary P., “My Mother’s Lips, My Father’s Tongue"
MacKenzie S., “When you Hope"
Judge Arya Shahi referred to the middle grade submissions as "small wonders" and exclaimed, "How lucky we are to read them!" Of his three favorite poems, he noted that "Jodha’s poem is excellent in its use of surprising non-linear images and stunning last line. Angela’s poem provides a gut wrenching narrative and resonant conclusion in just a few short lines." and that he was impressed by "Zion’s poem for its cohesion, strong central metaphor, wit, and wonderful imagery."
Judge Nadine Pinede commented "What an absolute delight, and what hope it inspires, to read and re-read these wonderful poems." She described Eve's poem as "A fresh approach to the innovations of graphic poetry, with meaning and shape visually married on the page" and Shreya's poem as "A sparkling invitation to fully savor our connection to the natural world, both figuratively and metaphorically."
We hope you will enjoy reading the winning poems as much as the judges did. It is an honor to publish them.
FEATURED ELEMENTARY SCHOOL POEMS
Summit
by Eve K.
Sometimes
by Annika T.
Sometimes
I think Earth would be better off
Without humans.
Sometimes
I wonder how some people
Can’t see what they are doing
To their home.
Sometimes
I wonder why I understand
But don’t take action.
There’s nothing I can do.
That’s why.
But I can do something.
We can all do something.
We just have to tell ourselves
We can.
Every small thing adds up
Like grains of sand.
We just have to believe
That what we do will make a difference. Sometimes
I think Earth would be better off
Without humans.
We’re the only ones who can make such a mess.
And we’re the only ones who can fix it.
Hope
by Adithi S.
Hope.
It is the little spark in the darkness.
The darkness that swallows our hearts.
The heart that gives us breath.
The breath that we owe our lives to.
Hope.
It is the bridge that spans the abyss.
The abyss full of despair.
The despair that gnaws at our will.
The will that drives us forward.
The forward that we toil for.
Hope.
It is the warmth that kills the cold.
The cold that chills our bones.
The bones that support our body.
The body that is our strength.
Hope.
It is the song that fills our silence.
The silence that leaves us in pain.
The pain that breaks us.
The breaking that we strive to fix.
Hope.
It is the spark.
It is the bridge.
It is the warmth.
It is the song.
Hope is you, and you are hope.
Hope is me, and I am hope.
Hope is...
EVERYTHING
FEATURED MIDDLE SCHOOL POEMS
A Ladder with a Thousand Rungs
by Zion J.
Hope is a runt dog who won’t get off your doorstep,
Wagging a dirty tail and shaking its scruffy fur
Each day, always coming back with a signature smile.
Hope is a soft-spoken lullaby of the ideas unfathomable,
With a tune that jerks tears, sets mouths agape.
Hope breaks Newton’s every law.
It’s momentum without action
Problem, but never solution
For hope is always in between.
“Is hope stopping me from achieving my dreams?”
No! I must insist not!
Hope is nothing but a long ladder
If you look up that ladder and never climb up
There will never be a reward.
But if you climb up;
If you feed that runt dog
Let it grow fur; let it grow wings!
Let it take you to the lullaby’s world.
Let that momentum let loose.
Watch the problems dissolve.
For that is hope in its simplest form:
A ladder with a thousand rungs, waiting for one to ascend.
That is what hope is to me, in fact–
That is what hope is…but only if YOU choose to climb.
Hope
by Jodha D.
Hope
Sometimes hard to see
Always there
In your heart
Sometimes locked inside stone walls
But
Maybe not
It will burst through
The walls of despair
You have built around it
Giving you light
In even the darkest times
When you can only dream
of better things
The brush of wings
As your joy infused
With your faith
takes flight
There will be red
Hands trying to stop it
From flying
From ridding the despair
The misery
The doubt
Inside your heart
But they will not succeed
And your light will flood the world
Banishing the shadows
The small ember lighting up the sky
If only
You let it free
Because the things trying
To stop you from blossoming
Is you
You, when the fear
Is too strong for the hope
Too strong to let you believe
But that sliver of light
Will grow to overcome
The denial
That you are enough
To break this world
To break the shadows
Burst through and
Conquer the joy you need
Because you
Believed
Because you had the courage
To hope
Hope, Hope, Hope…
by Angela Q.
Hope, Hope, Hope...
My Mama always tells me to have hope
She says hope is a beautiful, wonderful thing
Hope she says will always be in your heart swirling around giving you wings
Don’t let yourself believe that your hands are tied with a rope
Keep hope in your heart and always have hope
That the war will end, and that things will change for the better
But I am done, it hasn't done me any good
So why should I have hope that things will get better
When hope hasn't done me any good
I really want things to get better, but they never do
I, I think I hurt Mama’s feelings she isn’t moving anymore
Mama, please say something please move I didn’t mean to hurt you
Mama, Please I promise I will continue to hope for the end of the war
Just please Mama move again, Mama please say something
Mama’s gone at least that’s what the lady in the blue dress said
What is this thing I feel it’s painful and numbing
I can’t feel anything after what the lady in blue said
But there is one thing I can still feel HOPE
I can feel it swirling around in the depths of my heart
It’s still there that beautiful thing called HOPE
Mama was right, hope would give me wings, hope would always be in my heart.
FEATURED HIGH SCHOOL POEMS
Raindrops make Rainbows
by Shreya K.
It is early
It is storming
The drops on the window
Stick
Slide
Drop
On the green grass
They
H
A
N
G
Like hope
if you look into the
Small drop
You might see your little reflection
You might see a rainbow
In every society storm
if individual raindrops can catch the light
in them will bloom a rainbow
But only if you can hang with hope like the little dew drop
It is never too late
It is never too early
My Mother’s Lips, My Father’s Tongue
by Hilary P.
my tears are falling
into the bathroom
sink
each droplet reaches
the drain, an ocean
less than it began
father, you raise less
and less of me
each day
red-rimmed eyes rising
behind rose-colored glasses
challenging me
silver, lining dark, coffee eyes
glassy
an echo thrown against white plaster walls
boxes lined with black
4 rows of 7,
prison cells
my mother's full lips,
my father's whip-tongue
i am a mosaic of the people who don't love me enough
these thin walls
patterned with screams indented like bloody handprints
they confine me
like calendar boxes lined in black.
red lines through number dates
one day closer
to pulling pieces of shrapnel
from my heart
and leaving this rotting nest.
When You Hope
by Mackenzie S.
When you blow out candles on your birthday
When you attend church every sunday
When you wish upon a the first star in the sky
Hope
When you desire for something greater
When you strive for a large reward despite the risk
When you believe that it will all work out
Hope
When you have trust in something despite little certainty
When you go all in without knowing the outcome
When you find peace in the unknown
This is hope.
Our sincere gratitude once more, to all who submitted. We look forward to reading your work next year! Our 2025 theme will be announced on this website in March - so keep an eye out for that. As with this year, we will accept submissions via our form on this website again, during the month of April 2025.
Three cheers for the Diverse Verse 2024 Poetry Month Team, who volunteered to take time off their incredibly busy schedules to assist this effort, and whose input was vital to the success of this year's Call for Poems:
Lisa Stringfellow, author of the Bram Stoker Award nominee COMB OF WISHES and the upcoming release KINGDOM of DUST, served as the technical director for our call.
Arya Shahi, author of Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection AN IMPOSSIBLE THING TO SAY, and director of the Tony Award nominated musical, Water for Elephants, judged the middle school category.
Nadine Pinede, a Pushcart Prize nominee, author several books including the upcoming young adult verse novel WHEN THE MAPOU SINGS, and editor of the upcoming illustrated poetry anthology THE EARTH IS A LIVING THING, judged the high school and elementary school categories.
Suma Subramaniam, author of Crystal Kite Award winner Namaste Is A Greeting, and the newest releases, A Bindi Can Be... and My Name Is Long As A River, served as chief editor of the Diverse Verse newsletter.
Hanh Bui, author of the CYBILS 2023 Fiction Picture Book Finalist THE YELLOW ÁO DÀI, and ÁNH’S NEW WORD, and served as the assistant editor of the Diverse Verse newsletter.
Ranjeeta Ramkumar, whose lyrical writing won her a 2021 Pitch Wars Mentorship, served as the publicity and graphics designer for the 2024 Diverse Verse Call for Poetry.
Padma Venkatraman, author of novels such as The Bridge Home and Born Behind Bars, and poems such as “Whenever You See A Tree” and “Undone” (published in Poetry magazine) and The Wait (Nominated for the 24th annual Pushcart Prize), assisted in various capacities.
We hope you have a wonderful spring!