Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023-24 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 Marilyn Chin, Michael Dickman, Katie Farris, Ilya Kaminsky, Lynn Melnick, Paul Muldoon, Kathleen Ossip, Patricia Smith, and Susan Wheeler.
Contest Winners
First Place
Acadia Reynolds
Charleston, South Carolina
“Dissection of a Cow Eye”
Second Place
Hallie Dong
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
“Mother, a Verb”
after Vicki Lin
Third Place
Allison Wu
Cohoes, New York
“Abecedarian for an ABC”
Read the winning poems from the 2023-24 contest
Honorable Mentions
Allison Kim
Greer, South Carolina
“Eulogy”
Lillie Markel
Greenville, South Carolina
“August Drive”
Nora Gupta
Queens Village, New York
“At Sunoco”
Violet Kinsey
Bothell, Washington
“Interpretation Of A Place”
Tara Prakash
Chevy Chase, Maryland
“Handfuls”
Isabella Capole-Chung
New York, New York
“H20”
Race Harish
Plainsboro, New Jersey
“The Worst Fever”
Seoyon Kim
East Greenwich, Rhode Island
“all her things have gone far away”
Lucía Ramírez Cantero
Monteroni di Lecce, Puglia, Italy
“Latina”
Peihe Feng
Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
“The Kitchen”
Graham Blanton
Waxhaw, North Carolina
“Setting the Table in a Time of War”
Robert Gao
Champaign, Illinois
“Chengdu / US”
Kyra Ezikeuzor
Richmond, Texas
“10 Hates for the Igbo American”
