Claudia Emerson Teen Poetry Contest

Annual Claudia Emerson Teen Poetry Contest

Join us again in 2026 for a brand new contest!

2025 marked the 22nd time the annual Claudia Emerson Teen Poetry Contest contest is held here at the library, and we are CRRL excited about continuing the tradition. The contest was named after the prominent poet who, during her service, judged the contest. We look forward to the talented young poets who will be showcased by the competition.

Cash prizes donated by the Friends of the Library.

Congratulations to the 2025 Teen Poetry Contest Winners & Honorable Mentions!

1st Place Winners 🏆

9-12 Grade

7,393 Miles from Home, Baryalai M.

6-8 Grade

Zero, Gorvi A.

Read the winning poetry below!

Winners: Grades 9-12

1st Place: 7,393 Miles from Home

by Baryalai M.

I am from the scent of fresh naan, warm from the tandoor
From green tea in small glass cups and the sound of laughter in the courtyard.
I am from the towering mountains and golden deserts.
And the winding alleys of Khost, filled with stories carried by the wind
I am from the proud pomegranate trees of Kandahar
Whose fruit bleeds.
I am from the echoes of Rabab melodies and the rhythm of Attan
From the wisdom of the elders and the strength of my people.
I am from the chai shared with strangers and the open door of hospitality,
“Don’t let your brother do something bad.”
I am from whispered prayers at dawn, the Bismillah before each new journey.
I am from the mountain of Hindu Kush and the valleys of my Khost,
Warm Bolani, Biryani, Mantu
From the stories told by Father who took care of our village
And from the wisdom of Grandmother whose hands wove the past into the future.
I am from kites soaring in the Kabul sky,
From the Khost where we grew up.

Drop the arrow down to view poem.

2nd Place: Sixteen steps away from home, by Lesly R.

Una vela, pequeña y temblorosa  Ama me arrulla en sus brazos, su respiración tranquila contra mi piel. Apa me levanta en el aire, su risa un trueno cálido, como si este momento pudiera durar para siempre.

Dos, tres, cuatro  las paredes conocen mi risa, mis huellas bailan sobre el suelo frío. Las manos de Ama acomodan mi cabello, las de Apa me sostienen en sus hombros. La casa es pequeña, pero dentro de ella, el mundo es inmenso.

Cinco el pastel llega envuelto en llamas pequeñas, Ama las protege del viento con sus manos, Apa me dice, pide un deseo. Pero no lo necesito. No hay nada más que pedir.

Six  the candles still come, but the voices are softer, the music doesn’t play as long. I tell myself it’s nothing, that love does not need noise to exist. Home is still home, even if it feels just a little smaller.

Seven, eight, nine  the table is less full, the gifts fewer. The laughter comes in short bursts before fading into quiet. I start to wonder if I am the only one who feels the space widening between us.

Ten, eleven  there is no cake this year. Just a quiet happy birthday in passing, no candles, no song. I wait for something more, but it doesn’t come. Home does not feel any different to them. Only to me.

Twelve  I do not ask why. I do not ask for anything at all. I press my fingers against the wooden table, the same one I sat at every year, the same one where I once leaned over a cake. The table still stands. The home still exists. But the feeling is gone.

Thirteen, fourteen  the day comes and goes like a breath. No one notices. No one remembers. Home used to be made of voices, now it is made of silence. I swallow the ache and move on.

Fifteen  I do not wait for anyone to say my name. I wake up, sit alone, watch the sun rise like it does every other day. I do not look at the door. I do not wait for it to open.

Sixteen  I light a single candle for myself, just to see if I still can. The flame flickers, soft, uncertain. Home was once hands that held mine, a place where love lived out loud. Now it is quiet, distant, just a house standing where something greater once was.

I take one step. Then another. Sixteen steps away from home.

3rd Place: Whippoorwhill Song, by Moon M.

Baptize me in racing mountain streams
Cricket cadence drumming through our hearts
A beat that threads its way inside my dreams
Reach up in the sky and pluck the gilded rays apart

Help me help me help me see the sun
That peeks between the feather-blanket clouds
Paint me all the battered peace we’ve won
Reach up in the sky and fold away Nephele’s shroud

Two as one take shelter in our car
To sate the gaping god within my soul
Show me heaven in between the stars
Reach up in the sky and swallow constellations whole

Blue light glow along the straight-shot road
That guides the one or both of us toward home.

Honorable Mentions: Grades 9-12

Monopoly Ends with Meatballs, by Grace W.

I sit down at the dinner table.
The smell of all those different cheeses floods my nose.

As my mom mixes the meat.
She sings my grandmother’s favorite song.

“Oh my love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me.”

My mom puts the meatballs in the pan to let them simmer.
She puts them in for the perfect amount of time so they are perfectly crispy.

My dad, my sister, my mom, and I start Monopoly,
Which we all know will go downhill.

My sister pulls ahead.
I start to get mad.

Just as I start to mouth off,
The bell for the meatballs rings.

The game stops,
But no one cares.

My mom grabs them out of the pan.
My dad puts them on the plate with the spaghetti.

I take the plates and put them on the table.
Mia takes the silverware and puts that on the table.

We sit down and eat the wonderful food my mother has made.
The delicious smell overwhelms me.

The game and the anger that came with it has been forgotten.
Replaced with the meatballs and love of family and food

Canine: Pulse Point, by Zoe L.

Your mother always warned you;
never show them your neck;
never let them know what scares you,
what makes you feel less than significant.
The things that keep you up at night,
tossing and turning,
spirals wrapping and twisting through the
held-tight space of your mind.
But where your mother finds weakness,
you see the beauty in baring your throat to
another. How could there be anything more
intimate than allowing someone to hold your
pulse between their teeth, knowing that
despite everything you’re safe. If that alone
is not an unparalleled tenderness I cannot
fathom the foolish actions people call love

The Weight of Gentle Things, by Anastasia W.

Trembling,
Insignificantly delicate.
How would she know the difference between
Affection and detriment?
If only there were
Some sort of indication
That the small of her
Back wasn’t an altar
For hands that never prayed.
That the warmth wasn’t always
A precursor to burning.
She learned to smile
With apology folded beneath
Every upward curve-
Because love, she thought,
Was supposed to ache
Just a little

Red Shepherd, by Silas J.

Silence.
Who are we without the mouths from which we speak our soul?
Translucent tape covering the geyser
Won't do much in the long run.
Disgrace.
Is this really what you want to be?
Physical appearance can always be altered by the eyes of the perceiver,
Why bother trying?
Besides, "You look much better in blue."
Dishonesty.
Try harder, maybe you'll finally capture the flag.
Blindfold the babies and reenact their birth, maybe that'll teach them.
The fire is setting on all that was sacred, and what's better than to watch it all burn?
You don't like it?
Where are your parents to tell you so?
Erase.
The mind runs blank when presented with written word.
Unaware that the very morals they follow are just that.
Written word.
Preemptive changes to prevent the sheep from straying far.
Herd them all into cages of labor
And take them away.
One by one.

The Breakfast Table (Almost 18), by Leylah H.

I have less than 400 guaranteed breakfasts left with my sisters
Maybe that’s a big number to imagine for most
But with a whole lifetime ahead of us that’s nothing to boast
Four hundred doesn’t feel plentiful
More like a joke; like the end of the road

Four Hundred sweaters borrowed but never returned
Four Hundred hours watching movies but somehow never bored
Four Hundred books we all have memorized like crazy people
Four Hundred “I’m almost readys” and “you’re taking too longs”
“You’re too slow”

Even 300 sounds like a lot out loud
Three Hundred songs sung at the top of our lungs
Two Hundred batches we’ve baked till the crack of dawn
One Hundred plus months we’ve spent perfecting the word trio
Then learning that sometimes definitions have to change with time and grow

Fifty States we’ve almost reached before it’s too late
Less than Ten things I occasionally dislike, okay, maybe hate
But even still only sometimes lonely, yet never alone
Because whenever I hear the number Five I think of family
I think of home

Unlimited memories that will one day be only that
So, let’s not wait till just before the countdown reaches one
Or before we’re ready for someone new to come along
To whisper sweet nothings in our ear
Because the first whisper we ever shared was together

Back when sister was a sacred word, synonymous with friend
Unaware that the moments that pass by so quickly always end
Back then time moved so slow as we counted down, waiting to grow up
Never knowing the Breakfast Table is where we would collide
And then one day eventually get up

So, pause before the next time you say I’m busy
Sit down, eat a meal, oh sing for all I care
Just enjoy the time you have, or rather had now I suppose
Because you might look back and realize
You only have time for just one more of those

Winners: Grades 6-8

1st Place: Zero

by Gorvi A.

The number zero,
A place holder,
Yet doesn’t have a place of its own.

It’s the beginning and the end.
The best yet worst.
Zero is dual sided, nothing ever truly one..
Zero…nothing….

All good things come to an end,
Or so they say.
But why then does zero start it all?
Zero has no end or beginning.
In shape and meaning making no difference.

It’s horrible.
The beginning and end is terrible.
Start and end mean nothing.
Zero means nothing.

Is the middle any better?

Is it the pages of a book?
Where you love the story,
Not the conclusion.
Not the end,
Which is nothing.

Is it a circle?
Endless and Infinite
A circle of life?
Zero is endless and infinite….

Samsara?
One with no end in sight?
Endless and infinite.

Where nothing truly matters?
Where everything will repeat for eternity?
Endlessly…

Or is it nothing
Zero the placeholder for nothing.
One with no place.
As it does not exist.
For nothing does not exist.

Yet for if nothing doesn’t exist,
Everything exists.
If everything exists,
Zero, the place holder for nothing,
Exists….

Exists for what?
To be a place holder of nothing.
Always a place holder.
Never the one wanted.

Drop the arrow down to view poem.

2nd Place: The Deeper Value Of y=mx+b, by Momina A.

Life and y=mx+b,
They don't go together,
As you might see.

But there's more than meets the eye,
Its value is like a gleaming star in the sky.

Y intercept and slope galore,
Will make you crave for more.

Habits compounding together with the rate of change,
The y intercept may or may not give an “unfair” starting point.

But when the value = 0 don't panic,
You sometimes start from the bottom,
Believe me i’ve been there,
But that's how grit is born.

You’ll feel low along the way,
But don't “take it easy”, give it your all,
If you’re serious about this pursuit called life.

Rising up or down,
You have the power to choose.
So don't misuse your gift.

He picked you of all creation,
Making your circumstances a “y intercept”,
That’ll be used to craft your story.

So don’t feel lonely or behind,
When you see others raising their lines,
Focus on your rate of change,
So you may contribute.

Contribute to this vast array of lines,
Because these lines create an impeccable mural named life.

3rd Place: Spaces Between, by Kadidia A.

The chair you left is still too empty.
The silence lingers where your voice should be,
I sit in the gaps of the ticking clock,
Where time moves on, grazes upon me.
It doesn’t see me.

The world around me folds neatly into boxes,
And everyone’s lives are wrapped, tight and clean,
But I am stuck, left to wander untethered,
In the space where you were, in the spaces unseen.

Tick, tick, tick–
The seconds march without care.
I stubble through moments, unmarked,
Lost between the past and air.
I ask myself: “Shall I even care?”

In the boxes, people go on living,
They smile, they work, they laugh, they dream,
But I am not in their neatly packaged world,
I am a ghost, drifting, unseen.
You were my anchor, my north, my ground,
Now, without you, I float adrift,
While the world spins on, untouched, unbowed,
And I am left with a life that doesn’t fit.

I see them, boxed in their certainty,
Wrapped in their paths, futures clear, trouble-free.
But my life is scattered, broken in pieces,
Filled with spaces I can’t bring close, can’t bring near
The spaces between are all I know,
The places where you used to be,
And now I live in those quiet gaps,
Where everyone else is, but not me.

They don’t see it, this emptiness, this weight
As they go about their ordered days,
But I am here, in the cracks, the seams,
Falling, fading into the shadows haze.

Tick, tick, tick–
The clock moves on, and so do they,
But I am still in the in-between,
Where time no longer had its say.
My life is in the spaces, the pauses, the gaps,
The parts where no one dares to stay,
And so, I stand, alone and apart,
I wonder how I'll live this way.

My mind races at an impediment pace,
Will I grow? Will I find a place?
Or will I always be the one
Who lives in the spaces, who doesn't belong,
A life undone, or perhaps a song unsung?
But maybe that's where I'll learn to be.

Not in the boxes, not in the neat,
But in the spaces between, where grief feels free,
And life is made of what’s incomplete.
I belong in the spaces unseen,
The row of boxes, never seen.

Honorable Mentions: Grades 6-8

whispers in the dark, by Jae-Lynn P.

Beneath the moon the shadows creep
A silence wakes where nightmares sleep
The walls they groan the air is thick
A cold embrace so sharp quick
Eyes unseen yet always near
Their hollow stare it feeds my fear
The whispers call low and slow
A twisted truth i'll never know
A breath behind a touch so light
It chills my spine and haunts the night
My feet they move but can't escape
The dark that twists and starts to gape
A breath too close a heartbeat loud
I turned but nothing in the crowd
The whispers claw they claw my mind
The shadows grow and they start to bind
I run I scream but none will hear
I’m lost within this endless sphere
And deep beneath the cold dark earth
They wait for me to know my worth

Glass Child, by Emily C.

Glass
Invisible like glass
Overshadowed, ignored
Never seen always bored
Looked to the bench
You weren’t there
Proof you never cared

“He’s different!”
“He needs are focus.”
I’m left to die in an empty forest
The thoughts always run
When no one cares
Then your mind becomes your only friend
Somethings are better left dead

Every hobby I pick up
It's never enough
I crave the attention
I need it, I want it
I’d do anything for it

How do I become “different” too
What are the requirements
I'll learn it
I'll do anything for it

Invisible like glass
Glass child I am
I am the glass
That cuts your hand

Boats and Planes, Robinna N.

“Muslims” a boy in my third grade class mutters under his breath
As we discuss 9/11, a day known for death
It’s not his fault, it’s just what he was taught
But I wish he could understand why his words left me distraught
“Immigrants” A lady calls out as I shop with my aunt
It’s lousy, it’s lazy, it’s hardly a taunt
But as my aunt turns to me and asks me to translate
I can hear my voice quiver and my heart start to break
I’ve put together patterns and recognized who I am
I understand I am different, my identity is too much to cram
Into a box, locked away for good.
It will stay with me forever, infant to adulthood
I am not ashamed
Your ancestors came here on a boat, but mine came on a plane
If you can’t comprehend that, then there’s nothing to explain.

The Girl in a White Flowing Dress, by Lily N.

A girl in a white flowing dress
Moves down the hall
But she's not going to the ball
She goes to the bridge
A song so sweet
It carries you with it
Down to the river
And below the bridge
Sitting on the river bank
Is the girl in the white dress
Sings her sweet song
Until dawn
You hear her sweet song
You walk down to the bridge and to the river
Under the bridge they spot the girl
The girl in the white dress standing on the river bank
With her head down watching the ripples
Her blond hair covering her face
You walk closer closing the space
The girl steps into the water
You wait a little longer
To go into the water
Following the girl
Her beauty as rare as a pearl
She’s in the water
And you follow
Her name is Margo
The girl in the white dress

The Human Calculator, by Natalie B.

Answers are taken off my page,
Eyes peer over my shoulder.
What happens when answers aren’t there?
When the one you relied on can’t help you
further?

They find me as AI, nothing but a resource,
A calculator, nothing but a solver.
Why can’t they see,
Why can’t they see I struggle too?

Humans are pushed to the limits,
My hands are touching the ceiling.
Calculators can live forever,
The human calculator loses power.

the light he brought, by Vanessa J.

She wore a smile like armor tight,
But inside waged a silent fight,
A storm she couldn't seem to still,
A heart too heavy, void of will.

She laughed in halls, she spoke in class,
But no one saw the cracks in her glass.
Her world was quiet, cold, and dim—
Until the day she talked to him.

He didn’t ask for all her pain,
He didn’t try to fix the rain.
He simply sat, and with a grin,
He let the warmth pour out, begin.

He cracked a joke, she tried to smile,
It held, if only for a while.
Then day by day, the dark would flee—
Not all at once, but steadily.

He listened when she found her voice,
He never pushed; he gave her choice.
He didn’t need to understand—
He just stayed close and held her hand.

He showed her stars behind her eyes,
That she could shine, that she could rise.
That strength is soft, and tears are brave,
And even hearts can be saved.

So if she smiles a little more,
And laughs like light across the floor,
It’s ‘cause he saw what others missed—
The girl beneath the silent mist.

Not love, not lust—just something true:
A boy best friend who knew.
Not to be a hero bold,
But just to stay, and just to hold

Listen to the Claudia Emerson, Pulitzer Prize Winner for Poetry interview in our catalog.

Claudia Emerson, 1957-2014

We would not be celebrating our annual Teen Poetry Contest if not for the help and guidance of Claudia Emerson, a former professor at the University of Mary Washington and a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, who also served as Virginia's Poet Laureate.

She judged the Teen Poetry Contest and hosted Teen Poetry Night from its inception, encouraging countless young poets and gently shaping the event as it grew to over 300 entries. Before each winning poem was read, Claudia shared what it was about that poem the moved her. Her goal was to empower the young poets, and her comments showed the depth of thought and attention she had given their works.

Claudia's talent as a poet was equaled by her generosity of spirit and passion for developing young poets. In 2022, Claudia was named as a Changemaker in the Virginia Women in History program.

Past Teen Poetry Contest Winners

Search

Annual Claudia Emerson Teen Poetry Contest

Winners: Grades 9-12

1st Place: 7,393 Miles from Home

by Baryalai M.

Honorable Mentions: Grades 9-12

Winners: Grades 6-8

1st Place: Zero

by Gorvi A.

Honorable Mentions: Grades 6-8

2024 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2023 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2022 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorable Mentions

2024 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2023 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2022 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorable Mentions

About Us

News, Events, & Reports

Support Us

We Can Help

Employment at the Library

Annual Claudia Emerson Teen Poetry Contest

Winners: Grades 9-12

1st Place: 7,393 Miles from Home

by Baryalai M.

Honorable Mentions: Grades 9-12

Winners: Grades 6-8

1st Place: Zero

by Gorvi A.

Honorable Mentions: Grades 6-8

Past Teen Poetry Winners

2024 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2023 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2022 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorable Mentions

2024 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2023 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorees

2022 Teen Poetry Winners & Honorable Mentions