Poetry Competition | Why Earth Day Matters
This year, the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is thrilled to be sponsoring an environmental poetry competition with the theme “Why Earth Day Matters,” inviting writers to interpret Earth Day in a variety of ways. The competition is open to Santa Barbara County residents of all ages.
The competition is a celebration of Earth Day, taking place this year on April 22, 2021, and is intended to highlight the importance of standing up to protect the planet’s dwindling natural resources and working against the threats of climate change.
Poetry entries will be judged by poet Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, former Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara (2015-2017), and the top three poems will be announced and read at the annual Santa Barbara Earth Day virtual celebration organized by the Community Environmental Council (CEC).
For its 2021 Earth Day celebration, CEC will be focusing on climate leadership. The Wildling is pleased to be supporting this year’s Earth Day celebrations with this poetry competition.
Questions? Email info@wildlingmuseum.org or call (805) 686-8315.
All Ages invited to Participate!
Submission deadline: Monday, March 22, 2021, 5 p.m.
About Poetry Judge Sojourner Kincaid Rolle
Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Photo by Dorothy Littlejohn
Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, a poet and community activist, served as Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, California, from 2015-2017 and as one of the Poets Laureate-in-Residence at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History during its 2016 Centennial. The museum published Moving Forward, Looking Back; Poems Celebrating Nature as a part of that group residency. In 2017, she was profiled in Holli Harmon’s Portraits of the Central Coast. She has authored three collections of poetry: The Mellow Yellow Global Umbrella, Common Ancestry, and Black Street. A selection of her poems appears in What Breathes Us: Santa Barbara Poets Laureate 2005-2015 and The Geography of Home. Sojourner's in-progress book, Where The Hum Begins is a collection of "place" poems inspired by the California Central Coast and beyond. She has engaged young poets through her Song of Place Poetry Project and the Santa Barbara Public Library, as well as the youth-serving programs City At Peace, Endowment for Youth, and numerous after-school programs. Sojourner has served as chair of the annual MLKSB Essay and Poetry Contest, a past board member of California Poets-in-the-Schools, and as a former associate editor for Sage Trail Poetry Magazine. Her environmental activism includes work with Agua Pura, Sierra Club, Community Environmental Council, and Watershed Resource Center.