Elementary School
FIRST PLACE
5th Grade, Homeschool, Clifton, VA.
RIDING FUSED WITH THE HORSE
Give a breath, get a breath
We are intertwined.
I go where you go,
You read my mind.
I feel no pain, no loss, no fear.
I feel your heartbeat next to mine.
We share the blood in my veins.
We share the same thoughts, rhythm and time.
Our souls are forever tied.
We are in the moment, this is now.
Forget everything we have done
Everything we made
Everything we lost
Everything we faced
Everything we could have, should have done.
This is now, and we are together
Like a whirlwind through the arena.
And we have nothing and everything to lose.
SECOND PLACE
3rd Grade, Ferry Pass Elementary School, Pensacola, FL.
Sky
When you see the sky
the clouds all come together
then fade into one
THIRD PLACE
5th Grade, Keystone School, San Antonio, TX.
Side by Side
Sometimes I feel like
I don’t belong
because I am not the same.
Some people are taller,
some are louder,
some already know the answers.
I am still learning where I fit.
Unity is when
no one laughs at mistakes.
It’s when someone saves you a seat
or waits for you
so you are not alone.
It’s like holding hands in a line
even if you don’t know them well.
It’s saying, “you can play too”
without being asked.
We don’t have to be alike
to be together.
Unity means
we are stronger
when we stand side by side
instead of standing apart.
Honorable Mention
5th Grade, Masterprep Irvine, Irvine, CA.
One Bright Light
We are stars
in an endless, dark sky.
Some burn low,
some burn high.
We are different shapes
with different lights.
Some shine soft,
Some shine bright.
Alone, a star
can seem so small.
Together, we rise
and light it all.
We make patterns
in the night.
We turn the dark
into one bright light.
Unity means
we stand as one:
many small lights,
but one big sun.
Middle School
First Place
8th Grade, Palisades Episcopal School, Charlotte, NC.
Symphony of Sound
They built me from a tree that once stood alone.
Carved my body hollow, strung wire through my chest,
taught my ribs how to hold tension without breaking.
For years I watched them argue over which keys mattered more.
The white ones, bright as open windows.
The black ones, sharp as night.
They pressed them separately to prove a point.
A point no one needed to make.
Each note fell thin.
Lonely.
They blamed me, the instrument.
But I am not made for one voice.
Nor was I ever intended to be used alone.
When hands finally come
left and right.
Different in strength, different in reach.
They dare to press together,
something shifts inside me.
The low notes stop growling.
The high notes stop trembling.
The air between them fills.
I do not care which key begins the song.
I only know this:
no single note has ever lifted a room.
But together,
I have shaken ceilings,
mended silences,
and turned strangers into one sound, too wide to divide.
Second Place
6th Grade, The Pennfield School, Portsmouth, RI.
Blizzard of ‘26
I wake up
A slight chill through my cracked window
A white wisp sneaking past my blanket
Disturbing the comfort of my bed
I taste the frigid air
Blowing past my hair
As try and open the door
To take a peek at the blank, white wonderland
I try to turn on the charcoal fireplace
Click click click click click
Nothing
Just the sound of warmth, trying to turn on
No power
That is the first thing that comes to my head
I knock on my neighbor’s door
They have a gas stove, in which we brew bitter coffee and sweet tea on
We walk across the snowy landscape
Towards the building across the street
The one sign of warm
In this icy realm
Our neighbors are there
Reading and playing board games
Greeting us to play
We accept, laughing and pondering on answers
Now I notice how we can live
In a snow-covered wasteland
When we come together as one
In the Blizzard of ‘26
I notice that the community is a warm blanket to all of us
If we just open our arms
To everyone
Third Place
8th Grade, Virtual Learning Academy of Jessamine County, Nicholasville, KY.
Unplugged
You are connected to thousands of people
Yet reach out for none
How can you be so surrounded
Yet so utterly alone…
Each screen pulls us farther apart,
While outside we age,
We wait until it is too late to stop
Hooked on the hit of a digital heart
So ‘why not just one more scroll?”
Stop!
And realize alone we are great,
But together we are greater!
To truly be together
We must learn to be ourselves…
Peel away our eyes from the addictive screen
To find the fragments of
The real you,
Not the picture perfect lie
You presented the world
Alone, we each have a spark.
But together?
We have a lightning bolt!
So set down your phone,
And grab hold of the person in front of you,
Because to unite,
We must be willing to connect
Honorable Mention
8th Grade, Glen Rock Middle School, Glen Rock, NJ.
United
It’s 6 am on another Monday morning
My alarm clock wakes me, giving the warning
That it’s time to get up and out of bed
That it’s time to get school back into my head.
I walk over to the breakfast table
And reach for the syrup, obviously maple.
I look out the window and admire the snow,
Some pancakes and eggs, then I’m ready to go.
My mom hugs me and pecks my head
My dad grins and blows a kiss instead.
I look at my brother and stick out my tongue
He pulls a weird face, it’s our sibling love.
I go to my locker and slam it shut
Race my friend to the stairs, and all the way up.
Panting and laughing, we go to class
Hoping and praying we won’t need a pass!
Today, we’re learning what it means to be “diverse”
How unique people are, in this universe.
“A huge variety” is what the teacher explains
People tend to differ, but our core is the same.
The Apollo 11 mission is an example of this,
A global team united to fulfill their wish.
From building bridges to curing disease,
Teamwork is the way the world achieves.
Gandhi, Mandela, and Rosa Parks
Brought people together from all different parts
Folks stood together like never before,
Raising their voices until they were sore.
‘Two heads are better than one’ is what they say,
When out of ideas, others show you the way.
I think of the people that make up my friends
Some athletes, some scholars, yet how well we blend
Into a beautiful mix of voices and minds,
United, we leave our contrasts behind.
No matter that we sometimes seem far apart,
United, we come together as one heart.
Across every border, in every land,
United we’ll rise, hand in hand.
High School Poems
First Place
12th Grade, Admiral Farragut Academy, Saint Petersburg, FL.
The Pull of the Tides
From the deck of my place on the Island,
I watch the Gulf roll in, green-blue and restless,
carrying salt on the wind that tangles my hair
like it did when I was a kid running these sands.
The water doesn't care who shows up.
Retirees from Ohio with metal detectors,
families from Tampa unloading coolers,
a fisherman with callused hands from Cuba,
a young couple speaking Spanish and laughing,
kids from up north pale as shells, screaming at waves.
We all step into the same surf,
toes sinking into wet sand that shifts under us.
The tide pulls at ankles like it's testing our balance.
One morning it's me and the old man who lost his wife last year,
both of us staring at the horizon, saying nothing much,
just nodding when our eyes meet.
Another day the beach fills with voices.
A pickup game of volleyball, shouts in English and Creole,
a woman teaching her daughter to body surf,
the crash of water mixing with every accent,
every story washing up like driftwood.
No one planned this gathering.
We just came because the sun calls,
because the sea is bigger than our differences,
because here in the outdoors where the horizon flattens everything,
we're reminded we're small together.
The waves keep coming,
erasing footprints one after another,
but not the way we lean on each other.
A hand offered when someone stumbles in the current,
a shared towel against the sudden chill,
a quiet "you okay?" after a wipeout.
Unity isn't a speech or a flag.
It's this: strangers turning into neighbors
in the space between high tide and low,
bodies bobbing in the same salty cradle,
holding steady while the water moves us all.
I stand knee-deep at sunset,
the sky streaked orange over the Gulf,
and feel it.
Not just the pull of the tide,
but the pull of us,
one people, rising and falling together,
like the sea that brought us here.
Second Place
11th Grade, Goose Creek High School, Goose Creek, SC.
Many Leaves, One Tree
America is a tree-
Not planted yesterday,
Not perfect,
But growing.
Its roots stretch deep
Into complicated soil–
History tangled with hope,
Pain braided with promise.
Roots that drink from many underground streams:
Languages carried across oceans,
Songs hummed in cotton fields,
Recipes whispered in kitchens,
Prayers rising in a hundred different names.
The trunk stands firm,
Scarred in places
Where storms once struck,
Rings marking years of drought and triumph.
It does not hide its knots.
They are proof
That it endured.
Branches reach outward–
Some long and bold,
Some small and still forming--
But all reaching for the same sun.
They do not compete for the sky.
They share it.
And the leaves--
Oh, the leaves--
Each one a family.
Each one shaped a little differently,
Veins carrying stories
From grandparents to children,
From porch swing to city sidewalks,
From deserts to shorelines.
Some leaves shimmer gold,
Some deep olive green,
Some edged in crimson courage.
When the wind shifts through them,
It does not pry into where they came from.
It simply makes melodies.
In autumn,
When one leaf trembles,
The branch steadies it.
When storms come,
The trunk holds fast.
When winter feels too long,
The roots remember how to wait for spring.
America is not one leaf.
It is not one branch.
It is not even just the trunk.
America is the whole tree--
Rooted in beautiful diversity,
Alive because of difference,
Powerful because of connection.
And when we stand together,
We are not a scattered forest.
We are one big, unyielding tree
Lifting our countless leaves
Towards the same bright blue
Vast and limitless sky.
Third Place
9th Grade, Veritas Christian Academy, Fletcher, NC.
The Bond We Share
We don’t like the same music.
You blast yours in the car,
and I pretend to hate it,
but somehow I know all the words.
We come from different streets,
different stories,
different kinds of chaos at home,
yet we meet at the same lockers
every morning
like it's our checkpoint in the universe.
Unity in friendship isn’t about
being copies of each other.
It’s inside jokes no one else gets,
it’s “text me when you get home,”
it’s saving a seat in class
without even asking.
When one of us is breaking down
over grades or drama or life,
the others don’t try to fix everything–
we just sit there,
passing snacks back and forth,
like that's enough to hold the world together.
We hype each other up
like we’re a headline event,
even if it’s just a presentation
we barely finished the night before.
We argue sometimes
about foolish things,
about real things.
But somehow we always circle back
because at the end of the day
it’s not about being right–
it’s about us being us.
We’re different pieces,
random and mismatched,
but then we stand side by side
in blurry group photos
with our arms slung over shoulders.
It feels like this–
like maybe unity
is just choosing each other
again and again
in the middle of everything.
Honorable Mention
9th Grade, Sage Hill School, Newport Coast, CA.
Eight
Oars enter the water
with a soft shuck —
a muted thud of silk on skin,
a brief kiss of blade and river,
a single syllable of water.
Eight blades, eight sounds
fracturing the surface
until the river gathers them into one.
Eight hearts, eight pulses —
breath suspended at the catch,
knees coiling in quiet accord
before the drive releases.
Then legs press, seats run,
and the hull answers back.
If one blade rushes,
the shell trembles.
If one lags,
the wake unravels.
So we listen —
to the click of slides,
to breath passing shoulder to shoulder,
to the slight lift at the finish
where blades feather
and air replaces water.
We stitch the river with blades,
stroke upon stroke,
through the narrow seam
where the hull slips forward.
Water folds and unfolds behind us.
The river no longer divides blade from blade
or breath from breath.
Eight shadows lengthen in the wake
until even the current
cannot discern us,
until even the wind
finds no space between us.
We are eight.
We are one.
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