Cultivating and advancing Virginia's poetry
Judges have selected our 2024 Student Contest winners!
View a list of Student Contest Winners
Grade Level Contests
S-1 - Grades 3-4
S-2 - Grades 5-6
S-3 - Grades 7-8
S-4 - Grades 9-10
S-5 - Grades 11-12
2024 Winners
S1 Judge Elizabeth Spragins
1st Place Gannon Inman “A Wave in a Seashell”
2nd Place Vivienne Solanki “Pigs Are Puppies”
3rd Place Flynn Mallory “Breaking Glass”
HM Violet Gallagher “Snow Bushes”
S2 Judge Gail Giewont
1st Place Jacqueline Branch “The Last Wedding Candle”
2nd Place Charlie Record “A New Cat Learns”
3rd Place Molly Hynes “Clear Pebbles of Rain”
HM Enilea Burns “Holding Our Heads up High”
S3 Judge Marsha Owens
1st Place Octavia Aurora “Her Place”
2nd Place Carter Wilson “A Lonely Life”
3rd Place Lily Coleman “Drive”
HM Alice Kutch “The Beach”
S4 Brian Donnell James
1st Place Ori Taylor “Someday Sermons”
2nd Place Ariana Blake “Sleeping Beauties”
3rd Place Rafiullah Ihsas “From Struggle to Triumph: A Migrant's Odyssey”
HM Victor Huang “Things That Happen During a Family Fight”
S5 Judge Grace Cavalieri
1st Place Hannah Rouse “an hour into the Miss Americana documentary”
2nd Place Vivian Huang “airborne hope”
3rd Place Fairouz Bsharat “Mere moments before Eid, colonizers hunt for homes in Jerusalem”
HM Pepper Maranto “Luna Moth”
The Jenkins Prize
Sponsored by Amber, Alyssa, and Annika Jenkins
For grades 9-10 only.
S6 Judge John Berry
1st Place Emily Tong “little gingerbread girl, serving tea for the half-husband”
2nd Place Isabella Lyons “In the Blue Willow Tea Room”
3rd Place Chelsea Zhu “Nature’s Overture”
HM Haneul Joung “My Candid Poem”
The Poetry Society Prize
Exclusively for Virginia students in grades 6-8.
S7 Judge Susan Corbett
1st Place Ojasvi Ramani “Final Shot”
The Virginia Student Prize
Exclusively for students in grades 9-12
S8 Judge Rich Follett
1st Place Yahney-Marie Sangaré “first poem in form of parting”
2nd Place Fairouz Bsharat “The death of a Star The birth of a Supernova”
3rd Place Hannah Rouse “to the person I’ll live with one day”
HM Colton DeHaven “It’s eternity in there”
Spoken Word Prize
S9 Judge Michelle Garcia
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1st Place Ariana Blake “standing on top of a mountain and looking down”