Poetry Competition | Climate Change: Our Impact

Enjoy A Live Poetry Reading by our Winners at the Santa Barbara Earth Day Celebration on Saturday, April 23rd!

 
 

Congratulations to our 2022 Earth Day Poetry Competition Winners

Adult Category Winners

  • First place: Linda Schwartz - "Climate Change--Small Steps to Make a Difference"

  • Second place: Jami Joelle Nielsen - "The Earth's Choir"

  • Third place: Jaque Reed - "Hidden Waters"

Youth Category Winners

  • First Place: Gabrielle Terzian - "Our Responsibility" (Age 13)

  • Second Place: Audrey Martinez-Garcia - "Impact" (Age 8)

  • Third Place: Takunda Chikowero - "Preserve Nature" (Age 8)

The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is pleased to announce its second annual Earth Day poetry competition with this year’s theme, Climate Change: Our Impact. Santa Barbara County writers of all ages are invited to use poetry to interpret the effects of climate change and our role in a variety of ways, with separate judging categories for youth (ages 17 and younger) and adult writing submissions. The competition is intended to honor Earth Day while highlighting the importance of standing up to protect the planet’s dwindling natural resources and working against the threats of climate change. The deadline to submit work for consideration is has been extended to Monday, March 28, 2022 at 5 p.m.

Poetry entries will be judged by poets Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, former Santa Barbara Laureate (2015-2017), and Chryss Yost, former Santa Barbara Poet Laureate (2013-2015).

Adult poetry entrants will have the opportunity to win First Prize ($200), Second Prize ($100), and Third Prize (Family Membership to Wildling Museum). Youth poetry entrants will have the opportunity to win First Prize ($100), Second Prize ($50), and Third Prize (Family Membership to the Wildling Museum).

The competition will culminate at the annual Santa Barbara Earth Day celebration hosted by the Community Environmental Council (CEC), taking place on Saturday, April 23, 2022 at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara. The top three winning poems in both the Adult and Youth categories will be selected ahead of Earth Day with the chance for winners to read at the Santa Barbara Earth Day celebration. Top winners will also be featured on the Wildling Museum website in the Spring of 2022.

Competition entrants must reside in Santa Barbara County. No more than three works may be submitted per person.

Questions? Email info@wildlingmuseum.org or call (805) 686-8315.

All Ages Invited To Participate!

Deadline Extended: Monday, March 28, 2022, 5 P.M.

Downloadable Entry Forms - PDF Version

Downloadable Entry Forms - Word Version

Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Poetry Judge

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. Generously anthologized, her poems appear in While We Wait (2021), Rare Feathers (2015), and What Breathes Us: Santa Barbara Poets Laureate 2005-2015. Her environmental activism includes work with Agua Pura, Sierra Club, Community Environmental Council, and the City of Santa Barbara Creeks Division.

Chryss Yost

Chryss Yost, Poetry Judge

Chryss Yost is the co-editor of Gunpowder Press, and served as Santa Barbara Poet Laureate from 2013-2015. Her poems have been included in the most popular poetry textbooks in the country and widely anthologized elsewhere. Poems have appeared in Askew, The Hudson Review, Quarterly West, and Solo as well as other national and international publications.

Past Programs/EventsRuben MislangPoetry, Earth Day, Climate Change, Community