Although we aren't able to celebrate this year's poetry contest winners in person this year, we are still so proud and excited to share this year's teen poems with you. We've prepared a virtual ceremony with a video introduction from teen librarians Anna and Renata as well as prepared remarks from our judge, Gayle Heney. If teens chose to submit recordings of themselves performing their poems, you can watch them in the video playlist or click the linked file for a poet's name. You can also read the text of all the poems and download a PDF of our virtual booklet. Please take time to appreciate the talents of our community's young writers.

Middle School Winners

• First Place: "Blocks of Time" by Bryan Bu                       
• Second Place: "Hope" by Ishaan Padmawar                       
• Third Place: "Drowning in Thin Water" by Addison Feltz           

Middle School Honorable Mentions

• "One Day" by Lyric Bartleson                               
• "My Future" by Anna DeLeo                               
• "The Strangers" by Anna DeLeo                          
• "The Impossible" by Addison Feltz                           
• "Hello, From Space" by Henry He                           
• "COLORS" by Samiha Jaffar                               
• "The wait is over" by Samiha Jaffar                           
• "Ocean at Night!" by Niranjan Nair                           
• "George Floyd" by Simone Pillidge                           
• "Save the Ocean" by Keira Schaefer                   

High School Winners

• First Place: "a letter to the goat in my backyard" by Michela Rowland       
• Second Place: "spiderwebs and snowflakes" by Michela Rowland           
• Third Place: "Not What I had Expected" by Maureen Wright               

High School Honorable Mentions

• "Rapunzel" by Elizabeth Anderson                            
• "A Gentle Reminder of All You Can Do" by Anat Briskin               
• "Scrapbook Love: a Smattering of Whispered Guesses and Analogies" by Anat Briskin
• "elegy of artemis" by Claire Cahill                           
• "music" by Claire Cahill                                   
• "a neutron star" by Claire Cahill                           
• "The School System is Broken" by Mimi Cung                       
• "The Motivation Behind the Authentic Pain" by Isaac Diaz               
• "love in the dark" by M.D.                               
• "waves" by M.D.                                       
• "The Drifting Monster of Present Day" by Nya Leonardo               
• "Ode to WWE" by Florence Mwangi                           
• "Beautiful Girl The Melancholy Princess" by Celia Schwartz               
• "The Pigeon" by Madeline Shin                               
• "In the night" by Fiona Veletzos                           
• "The Darkroom" by James Wong    
• “Junior Year” by Alexandra Zetea