2023 High School Poetry Contest

We are excited to launch this year's High School Poetry Contest. At least 50 poems will be selected for the 2023 High School Poetry Anthology. Click here for submission guidelines, information about this year's judge, and prizes.

About the Poetry Contest

The Marin Poetry Center sponsors teen-related projects that celebrate the arts and through our High School Poetry Contest.

MPC’s contest provides students professional review, selection, and publishing via our High School Poetry Anthology. Also, students selected for the anthology are invited to read their work at our Gala Award Ceremony in the spring of each year and receive a free anthology copy. For many students, inclusion in our anthology is their first experience writing and/or publishing a poem.  In the process, students tap into a special part of themselves and learn the power of their unique voice. Thank you for supporting the MPC High School Poetry Contest.

A note from MPC High School Anthology Editor, Erin Rodini

The Marin Poetry Center is thrilled to announce the winners and honorable mentions of the 2022 High School Anthology Contest! To follow last year, we opened our contest to Bay Area counties beyond Marin. Semifinalists were selected by a panel of experienced poets and our final judge, Judy Halebsky, reviewed them anonymously.

Every voice in this anthology is here because someone took the time to listen, to nurture, to teach. Thanks to the teachers who have created and maintained a space for poetry in their curricula, I can say with absolute certainty and joy that the art of poetry is vibrantly alive in Bay Area high schools!

2022 WINNERS

1 ^st Place: Oral History Poem – Ni N.F., Lowell High School
2 ^nd Place: I'll Pray to Myself (God Poem) – K. Bhatt, The Marin School
3 ^rd  Place:  red #1 –  Natalja Vazquez Adams, Tamalpais High School

HONORABLE MENTIONS

paper dreams – Vienne Voong, Lowell High School
vulnerable –  Manisha Murthy, Marin School of the Arts
counter balance  – Anonymous, Marin School of the Arts 
I've been peeling oranges as a form of prayer – Claire Cameron, Tamalpais High School
College Bound – Sonja Fish, Marin School of the Arts

44 additional poems have been selected for inclusion in the anthology, which launched at our Awards Ceremony and Reading on May 19, 2022.

Order a 2022 copy here:

Order a 2021 copy here: