Pulitzer Center Update June 25, 2025
Fighting Words Poetry Contest 2025: Winners, Finalists Lend Voices to Global Issues
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Students are invited to enter poems written in response to news stories to the Fighting Words Poetry Contest. This workshop guides teachers and students in how to craft a successful entry.
The Pulitzer Center congratulates the 2025 Fighting Words Poetry Contest winners and finalists!
This year's Fighting Words Poetry Contest received a record-breaking 1,875 entries from 26 countries, 40 states, and the District of Columbia. All of these students used poetry to process their personal feelings and relationships to issues in the news, and by sharing their words with the world, made those issues more resonant for others.
Fighting Words poems respond to and use lines from Pulitzer Center-supported news stories, merging the worlds of art and journalism to amplify the voices of young people and the urgent issues of our times. Please join us in celebrating the 23 young poets whose work appears below!
Contest Winners:
(* = poem is accompanied by an audio recording)
Issue 1: Climate and Environment
1st Place
"Let the Salt Speak" by Perseas Kamalani Vanebo*
11th grade | Waiakea High School | Hawai’i
Finalists
"what we do to quiet things" by Neev Pratap*
10th grade | Lawrence E. Elkins High School | Texas
"Like the Birds, We Will Migrate Too" by Isaac Yohannes Yebio
12th grade | Jackson-Reed High School | Washington, D.C.
"Her Mother's Song" by Jamin Oppong-Darko*
12th grade | Chenango Forks High School | New York
"Not All Treasure Shines" by Agustina Calles [poem forthcoming]
12th grade | Oakton High School | Virginia
Issue 2: Global Health
1st Place
"Burned by My Own Pain" by Briella Gauthier*
6th grade | Renaissance Secondary School | Colorado
2nd Place
"Under the Dust, We Remember" [Korean] by Cooper Lee
10th grade | Illinois Math and Science Academy | Illinois
3rd Place
"Act of God" by Jia Qi Chen
11th grade | Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology | Georgia
Issue 3: Human Rights
1st Place
"ARACHNIDIAN DOUBLE-THINK" by Lynde Mogensen*
12th grade | Adlai E. Stevenson High School | Illinois
Finalists
"The Signal We Deserve" by Chloe Nguyen*
5th grade | Austin Jewish Academy | Texas
"La Lupuna" by Valeria Ruiz
11th grade | Woodburn High School | Oregon
"If we have at least" by An Phương Nguyen
11th grade | Delta Global School | Vietnam
"What Was Lost in That Place" by Ashani Ahuja
10th grade | The Nightingale-Bamford School | New York
Issue 4: Information and Artificial Intelligence
1st Place
"TAMING OF THE MACHINE" by Elise Matney*
7th Grade | Blake Middle School | Minnesota
Finalists
"Ad Campaign" by Estelle Wong*
12th grade | William Fremd High School | Illinois
"They Are Not Data" by Aditya Pandey*
9th grade | William Fremd High School | Illinois
"The Slip" by Dean Cipriaso*
8th grade | Walker Junior High School | California
"why wait" by Sonali Khanna
12th grade | William Fremd High School | Illinois
Issue 5: Peace and Conflict
1st Place
"Split Horizons: A Contrapuntal" by Collin Kim
10th grade | Harvard-Westlake School | California
Finalists
"The Age We Never Chose" by Kyle Pham
8th grade | Walker Junior High School | California
"The News Plays in the Background While I Wash Rice" by Diyora Kabilova
10th grade | Homeschooled | Uzbekistan
"motherhood, interrupted" by Purvaja Yennamaneni
11th grade | International School of Hyderabad | India
"Stitches" by Elliot Logan*
6th grade | High Meadows School | Georgia
Thank you to our semifinal and final round judges: Elliott Adams, Hannah Berk, Intan Febriani, Kendra Grissom, Donnalie Jamnah, Jessica Mims, Jelter Meers, Fareed Mostoufi, Mark Schulte, Sarah Swan, and Morgan Varnado.
Caption for homepage photo: A manatee underwater. Image by Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock. 2021.
