Recap: 2021 Poetry Contest on COVID-19 Vaccines
Chartible organizations our winners helped us support this year:
Coffee House Writers Group,
ACLU,
ATime,
Youth Empowerment and Support Services,
Black Girls Code,
Ottawa Street Medic Collective,
National Canine Cancer Foundation,
Tulsa City County Library,
Wharton (NJ) Public Library
In mid-January we announced our poetry contest on the theme of
COVID-19 vaccination
just as the vaccine rollout was getting underway in many parts
of the world.
This has been our first major contest since 2016, when
the theme was
Community.
Vaccination may seem like a strange theme for a poetry contest, and we weren't
sure what to expect, but we were touched and delighted by the wide range
of ideas it elicited.
We received more than 1500 poems from poets around the world and from
all ages. Topics ranged from advocacy for vaccination; joy at reuniting
with loved ones; inequities in vaccine distribution; hesitations
about getting vaccinated; and, most
heart-wrenchingly, something that vaccines cannot do: reverse the losses we
and our communities have suffered in the past year.
You can flip through some of this year's
entries
here. The
winners are listed below.
We had a larger-than-expected response from teens and children, some
as young as 6 years old. We doubled the number of honorable mentions
from the 5 we originally promised to 10 and also added 10 finalists
($50 USD) so that we could reward a wide range of ages. All told
we'll be awarding $3000 in prizes, and directing $1300 more in donations
to nonprofits on behalf of the winners.
How we judged:
We hired 7 poetry enthusiasts (4 adults and 3 youth) to judge the
poems sent to us by email and Twitter. Each poem was read by a mix of
adults and youth. We also gathered emoji reactions from you,
our readers, on our website (74,000 reactions from 5300 different people) to
get a sense of which poems moved people the most. Only the poem’s
content was visible in this process — neither the hired judges nor
the public readers could see the names, locations, or ages of the
authors. We combined all these ratings to narrow down the pool,
and then picked our favorite poems across a range of author ages.
We looked foremost for thoughtful, creative treatment of the theme of
COVID-19 vaccination, but we also considered a poem’s technical
qualities like meter and rhyme.
If your poem is on the list below we'll be following up with you by email
or on Twitter with next steps. Thank you for taking the time
to reflect on this crucial topic and sharing your powerful words
with us. Wherever you are, we wish you and your family and community
a safe and peaceful 2021.
Co-winners (18+ division)
Vaccine Verseby Annie from Brooklyn, New York
Four hundred days less two...by Susan Vanost Silberman from Santa Ana, California
Honorable mentions (18+ division)
A tired smile in a stranger's eyes...by Nicole Johnston from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Vaccinatedby
Olivia Reed
Hope in a Syringeby Elysia V. Thorne from Oklahoma
Covid-19 Vaccine?by Chaya Nachum from Brooklyn, New York
Vaccine Against The Living Deadby Delia Ion from Bucharest, Romania
My arm’s aching,...by Shelby Sullivan from Atlanta, Georgia
Finalists (18+ division)
Conversation with an anti-vaxxerby Catherine Willoughby from Yorkshire, England
Vaccinations...by Mike Peoples from West Yorkshire, England
Inoculation: Morals Not Includedby J.M. Chip from Rhode Island
Grammy’s arms are crushing me...by Julie Letchner from Seattle, Washington
Last year, I had no shoulder to cry on...by
Anonymous
Winner (Youth division)
The Light at The End of The Tunnelby Megan from Rhode Island (age 16)
Honorable mentions (Youth division)
Hopeby Kiran from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (age 12)
Wake upby Gabby Sebestyen from St. Johns County, Florida (age 14)
Routineby Jasmine from Chicago, Illinois (age 15)
DYSTOPIAby Nara (age 17)
Finalists (Youth division)
Covid-19by Bella Kim from Sanghyun dong, Gyoungi, Korea (age 9)
Just a Pause, Not the Endby Asmi Sinha from San Diego, California (age 11)
Weby Kay Meyer from Forth Worth, Texas (age 12)
Not No Superheroby Carter Bake from Michigan (7th grade)
Inner Pandemic Thoughtsby Julia from Johnston County, North Carolina (age 12)
Original contest announcement below
Write a short poem about the theme:
COVID‑19 Vaccination
...and post it before the end
of the day on April 11, 2021.
Your poem can touch on topics such as
how you feel about getting the vaccine; what our post-COVID future looks like;
how the vaccines work; or more. Be creative!
Submit by
writing your entry on Twitter or emailing it to us.
(Emailed entries may be reposted anonymously on our website or Twitter account.)
In mid-April (National Poetry Month in the U.S.) we'll choose the ones we like best and award three winners $500 USD each
and five honorable mentions $100 USD each.
Continuing our tradition, we'll also
donate $100 USD to a registered public health or social justice
non-profit organization of the
writer's choice, for each winner and honorable mention.
We'll favor poems that show creativity, craftsmanship, and adherence to
the theme. In the most recent contests we've required that the entry be in
rhymed couplet form, and
that's still an option, but
for this special 2021 contest we'll accept any form.
Why have we chosen "COVID-19 vaccination" as a theme?
We've revived the contest after 3 years of dormancy so that we can encourage people to share
their feelings and perspectives in this anxious time. We would like to help researchers find innovative new ways to
communicate how important vaccines are to public health, and give a forum for people to understand
each other's hopes, concerns and hesitations about this topic.
Whether or not you enter the contest, we encourage you to read up on the COVID-19 vaccines
from official sources (such as the CDC in the U.S.) if you haven't already.
Submit by
writing your entry on Twitter or emailing it to us.
(Emailed entries may be reposted anonymously on our website or Twitter account.)
New: Read some of the poems submitted so far!
Non-profits supported:
Mermaids UK,
All Hands Volunteers,
ShelterBox Canada,
Sci Hub,
ASRC Australia,
Canyon Theatre Guild,
Direct Relief,
Homestead High School Music Boosters,
Make-A-Wish America,
Bethel Bible Village,
Cradles to Crayons
(Also see the
2014 / 2015
and 2016
contest pages.)
OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES for the RhymeZone Couplet Contest
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where prohibited by law. Applicants must be 18 years of age at the time of entry. A parent or legal guardian above the age of 18 may enter on behalf of a child under 18.
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PRIZES
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from the submissions. Sponsor will grant $500 USD to each winner of the contest and $100 USD to each honorable mention.
Additional non-monetary prizes may be given to other exceptional applicants.
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JUDGING CRITERIA
The Winner will be selected on the basis of its originality, humor, rhyme, meter, and adherence to the Couplet Contest theme.
The Winners and Honorable Mentions will be selected at the sole discretion of judges employed
by the Sponsor, and their decisions are final.
Note: This is not a popularity contest! While the Contest judges will consider the Twitter activity associated with each entry (such as the number of
hearts, retweets, and replies),
the Judges will ultimately use their collective judgment to decide on the winners of the Contest.
NOTIFICATION OF WINNERS
The Winners will be notified by Twitter direct message or email, and announced on RhymeZone.com, within two weeks of the contest deadline.
GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS
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In the event that any prize notification is undeliverable, Sponsor is unable to contact a potential winner, or response to a prize notification is not received within seven (7) days of its issuance, the prize may be forfeited. Where a prize is forfeited, the applicant with the next best submission in accordance with the Judging Criteria will be chosen as an alternate Winner.
Because this is a Contest of skill, the odds of winning depend upon the quality and eligibility of the submissions received, as well as the number of entrants. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel, modify or suspend the Contest should fraud, technical failures, or any other factors beyond the reasonable control of Sponsor impair the integrity of the Contest, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion. By entering the contest, entrant agrees to release and hold harmless sponsor, its parent, subsidiaries and affiliated companies, officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, causes of action and/or liability for any injuries, illness or death, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with participation in and/or entry into the Contest or receipt or possession, use or misuse of any prize or element thereof. Sponsor, its respective affiliates, parents, subsidiaries, agents and employees are not responsible for late, lost, illegible, incomplete, stolen, misdirected, illegitimate, or impermissible submissions or mail; postage due mail; or any other error whether human, mechanical or electronic.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
- Submissions may be posted on Twitter — either in a single
tweet, or in several tweets (one tweet per stanza preferred).
It must be understandable to speakers of English. Those without
a Twitter account may email the poem to us at contest2021@rhymezone.com. If you send email, kindly put the poem in plain text in the body of the email, unless
the formatting is essential, in which case you may send a PDF or image file attachment.
We reserve the right to repost emailed entries to Twitter or to our website (without the author name) so that
they can gather feedback from the public during the contest period, but we may not do so for all emailed entries.
- An entry is more likely to win if it shows creativity, craftsmanship, and adherence to the current theme.
It need not rhyme, nor does it have to include the theme words explicitly.
- Please keep entries to fewer than 100 lines.
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If you choose to post to Twitter, your message should include an "@" mention of our Twitter handle, @RhymeZoneCom,
or be a reply to the tweet announcing the contest, so that we can recognize it as a contest entry.
Click here to write such an entry.
Those without
a Twitter account may email the poem to us at contest2021@rhymezone.com.
We reserve the right to repost emailed entries to Twitter (without the author name) so that
they can gather feedback from the public during the contest period, but we may not do so for all emailed entries.
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