Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024-25 Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Prize.

All of the student writers are currently in the 11th grade in the U.S. or abroad. The winning poems were selected by a jury consisting of poets on the creative writing program faculty, including Michael Dickman, Katie Farris, Ilya Kaminsky, Lynn Melnick, Paul Muldoon, Kathleen Ossip, and Patricia Smith.

Contest Winners

First Place

Amy Lin
Belle Mead, New Jersey
“contrapuntal for my unshaven legs”

Second Place

Jake Welton
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
“burning haibun for crested ibis”

Third Place

Ela Roso
New York, New York
“Second-Hand Smoke”

Read the winning poems from the 2024-25 contest

Honorable Mentions

Audrey Lee
New Providence, New Jersey
“Round Key, Square Lock”

Jeremy Zhang
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
“How to Properly Place an Orange”

Farah Makni
Washington, D.C.
“devoid of matter”

Tasha Yang
Winchester, Hampshire, United Kingdom
“The Door”
“In Front of Mao Zedong’s Statue”
“Forgive”

Ben Grosskopf
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
“Chrysalis in the Shape of a Skull”

Julia Liu
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
“Boomerang Theory”

Aisha Weththasingha
Westlake Village, California
“return address”

Joanne Chae
Bellevue, Washington
“return null”

Alice Davis
Bronxville, New York
“White Mountain Sonnet”

Iris Lee
Shanghai, China
“Triptych for Zhāng Méiyǎn”

Anirudh Venkatesan
Parsippany, New Jersey
“The Man Who Licked My Hands”

Madison Ingram
Hopewell, Virginia
“Maw”

Quinn De Vecchi
Interlochen, Michigan
“Hello! Hello!”

Isabella Peterson
La Celle Saint Cloud, Île-de-France, France
“god according to a blonde 16 year-old girl”

Ashley Mo
Saratoga, California
“abecedarian for motherhood”