A great poem is like a pair of glasses: it brings the world into sharp focus. Weaving together...
The winners of our January writing competition blew us away with their beautiful explorations of poetry in the natural world. “Poetry, like the ocean, moves in waves—ebbing and flowing, breaking and retreating,” says Winner Avishi Gurnani. “I wanted the form of the poem to reflect that rhythm, shifting between personal memory and larger ecological grief.”
Read on to learn more about Avishi, Carolyn, and Xinrong, the winners of the competition!
Winner: Avishi Gurnani, Age 15
Where did the idea for your winning poem come from?
The inspiration for this poem came from a trip I took to Taiwan, where I saw something that stayed with me—coral that had risen above the ocean, now part of the hills. It was a striking image, this reminder that what was once underwater had been lifted into the sky, a testament to time, shifting landscapes, and the Earth’s quiet transformations.
While exploring, I accidentally cut myself on the sharp edges of one of these ancient corals. It was such a small moment, but it stuck with me—the idea that something so fragile in the ocean could become something so jagged and unyielding on land. That moment shaped the poem. It made me think about change, loss, and the marks we leave on the world, as well as the marks it leaves on us.
Guest Judge Rachel Eliza Griffiths commended how the piece "draws a clear bridge between human nature and the ocean." How does the poetic form lend itself to this exploration of humanity and our connection to the natural world?
Poetry, like the ocean, moves in waves—ebbing and flowing, breaking and retreating. I wanted the form of the poem to reflect that rhythm, shifting between personal memory and larger ecological grief. The fragmented structure, with its pauses and quiet moments, mirrors the way nature speaks in echoes, in things left unsaid.
The ocean holds both history and consequence. It keeps a record of every action, every change, much like the corals I saw in Taiwan—once part of the sea, now part of the land, still carrying the memory of the water. Poetry, in its fluidity, allows for that same sense of transformation. It lets me explore how deeply human existence is tied to the natural world, how the things we touch—oceans, corals, even the air—remember us long after we are gone.
Runner-Up: Carolyn Mitchell, Age 16
How did you approach writing your winning piece?
When coming up with ideas for my poem for the contest, I was firstly drawn to the concept of how often we discount the sheer enormity of nature, especially nature that is untouched by manmade technology. As I contemplated several subjects, I suddenly remembered a passing conversation I had recently had with my grandfather, one in which we discussed the rapidly changing landscape of his childhood home. When my grandfather described the completely black world of West Texas nights to me, it seemed like a fantastical story about a wholly different planet, one inundated with impossible creatures and endless twilight. The idea that this mysterious place could have been so familiar to my great-grandfather, that the presence of artificial light at night was so alien as to disturb him, was a concept so incredible to me that I immediately knew I had to incorporate it into my poem. Beginning in this hazy direction, I let my imagination for the setting guide me as I connected his experiences to my own, trying to pick out the common thread of nature that has united generations of our family through its undefinable wonder.
Do you have any advice for fellow writers who may want to try their hand at poetry?
Firstly, poetry itself isn't a skill or a knowledge that any one person is allowed to possess. Rather, it exists as the framework behind everything in existence, from the music that you listen to on the way to school, to the taste of stale gum, to the way your best friend's hair looks in the sunlight. Finding the poetry in the world and in yourself isn't the hard part; putting it into words is. The more you interact with poetry as a living being does with the world, the easier you will find it to express that poetry through your own creative voice. Although we may never have enough words to fully represent what we seek to convey, our verbal language is a beautifully evolving thing and my strongest suggestion to any aspiring poet is to make it your own. Disregard grammatical rules and linguistic expectations for a moment, try to uncover and redefine every possible meaning of the phrases you want to use, and choose your words carefully, because each one has power. In the end, all the poetry already exists; you simply need to write it down.
Best Peer Review: Xinrong Song, Age 17
Do you find that writing peer reviews helps you with your own writing?
Absolutely! I find that writing peer reviews makes me more aware of how everything in a literary work should connect and hold together. When creating my own pieces, I tend to rely on a random flow of thoughts, which can sometimes lead to including distracting elements in my writing, like imagery that doesn't fit or phrases that are too unusual or clichéd. But as a peer reviewer, I need to try to understand each author's literary choices and how they weave them back to the central theme. This process sharpens my eye for coherence in my own writing as well.
If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Margaret Atwood, hands down. There's no need for me to elaborate on how brilliant, witty, and celebrated she is. I really enjoy watching her interviews, and I absolutely admire her expansive knowledge of various societal elements from different historical eras. (I still remember being blown away in one of the earliest interviews I watched when she talked about the significance of rings in Renaissance portraits.) It would be thrilling to let the conversation flow into those random, unexpected topics with her during dinner. Plus, since she's reportedly a pescetarian and so am I, we'd probably have a great deal of agreement when choosing the dishes.
