Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019-20 Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Prize.

The prize, awarded annually, recognizes outstanding work by student writers in the 11th grade in the U.S. or abroad. The winning poems were selected by a jury consisting of Program in Creative Writing faculty, including Michael Dickman, Paul Muldoon, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, James Richardson, Tracy K. Smith, Susan Wheeler, Jenny Xie, and Monica Youn.

The winner of First Prize is awarded $500, followed by $250 for second prize and $100 for third prize.

View the list of honored students below, or read their prize-winning poems. Twelve students were also given honorable mentions.

First Place:

Hannah Wehrung, “When I Say I Wrote the Birds”
Yulee, Florida

Second Place:

Lane Devers, “Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff”
Interlochen, Michigan

Third Place (tie):

Lucy Cai, “Sick”
Lexington, Massachusetts

Tyler Kellogg, “Hunting”
Greenville, South Carolina

Honorable Mentions:

Jolin Chan, “The Three-Part Saga of Fran Li, 1982″
Irvine, California

Dylan Fritz, “American Politics as They Relate to Salamanders”
Greenville, South Carolina

Aniela Holtrop, “Arpilleras”
Freeport, Maine

Charlotte Hughes, “THE HEARTBEAT BAN IN IOWA MUSEUMS”
Columbia, South Carolina

Omari ‘Imipono Kenyatta, “moke akshen”
Waianae, Hawaii

Bianca Denise Layog, “User’s Guide to Hat Shopping”
Interlochen, Michigan

Olivia Lee, “o-to be-an isopod”
Arcadia, California

Maya Savin Miller, “i write my father in jail”
Pasadena, California

Maia Siegel, “When the Marbits Globbed Together”
Roanoke, Virginia

Yejin Suh, “TO AN ECHO OF A LANGUAGE IN STILL WATER”
Glen Rock, New Jersey

Diana Vink, “immortality and elizabeth”
Brewster, New York

Evelyn Zelmer, “Gentrify, Gently ”
Newark, Ohio

Learn more about the annual contest, including guidelines and updates on future contests, on the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Prize page.