First Prize

Small Island by Joanne Hillhouse

When Solo sang

“we bigger dan dem”

We

Children then

Missed the bravado

Behind the sentiment

Of the calypso

108

Was a number we knew

And it was big

Bigger than

The distant moon

And all the space in between

And just as bright as the sun

At midday

When it beat back

Shadows

With a vengeance

We were the mighty sun

And the steady moon

And as uncountable as the stars

And soon the world would know it

This fierce pride that beat in our chest

Our likkle* but tallawah* Us-ness

That we were

Small

And poor

Discounted

And powerless

Never occurred to us

• Likkle – little (West Indian English)
• Tallawah - Jamaican Patois word that means strong, fearless, and not to be underestimated.

Judge's comment  "Small Island" attests to the inherent, essential quality of human rights as what one is born with and into, indivisible from one individual, indivisible of all humanity. It speaks this truth in clear imagery, musicality, allusion, and voice--a deft handling of poetic craft that feels natural and accessible. It witnesses from a specific culture across all human cultures.

About the poet - Joanne C. Hillhouse of Ottos, Antigua, is an author of 8 books beginning with The Boy from Willow Bend and columnist of the CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column. Her poetry has been published in the Caribbean and internationally, including in BIM: Arts for the 21^st Century, The Columbia Review, The Caribbean Writer, and PEN America.

Second Prize

While I Pour Clean Water by Diyora Kabilova

(for Sudan — for the right to water, the right to life)

The faucet hums—a gentle hymn,
clear water brimming to the rim.
I fill the glass; the morning gleams—
somewhere, Sudan walks miles through dreams.

A girl bends low to meet the ground,
her shadow thin, her thirst profound.
The world debates, the drought remains,
and children drink from rusted rains.

I wash an apple, peel its skin,
and wonder where the storms begin—
not in the clouds, but in decree,
where justice waits too patiently.

This water runs through veins of law,
through hands that write what others saw:
Each child has right to drink, to live,
yet mercy takes what power gives.

My glass refracts a fractured sky—
I see her gaze when I lift mine.
The difference is a line of rain,
a border drawn through human pain.

So I will sip, but not forget,
the thirst the world has not met yet.
If every drop remembers name,
then water, too, can burn with flame.

Let rivers speak, let wells begin—
the right to live must flow within.
And when I drink, I make a vow:
to share the light that touches now.

Judge's Comment: "While I Pour Clean Water" draws on the metaphor of water, both literal and figurative to connect and contrast the experience of one/those born into resources with one/those born into drought and suffering. The voice of the poem recognizes the injustice of birth while recognizing the inalienable human rights both humans hold and the responsibility of those who have to recognize, speak up for, and work for justice for all.

About the poet -- Diyora Kabilova is a young poet from Uzbekistan whose work explores memory, place, and the quiet details of everyday life. She writes to preserve what might otherwise be forgotten, turning small moments into stories that linger. Recent accomplishments include “The News Plays in the Background While I Wash Rice” a winner in the 2025 Fighting Words Poetry Contest and award winning essay “The Last Song of the River Dolphine” from the Animal Welfare Institute.

Honorable Mention

The Light We Are Owed

by Tuoyo Palmer

We are born with the music of breath —

each gasp a declaration: I exist.

Before the flags, before the borders,

before someone decided which shade of skin

meant silence and which one meant crown —

there was only the pulse.

That holy drum under our ribs

that refused to be owned.

They have written laws

on paper that burns in the hands of the hungry,

spoken freedom in tongues

the poor were never taught to read.

They forget —

a starving man cannot sign a treaty,

a beaten woman cannot debate justice,

a caged child cannot pledge allegiance

to anything but sky.

But I have seen the light rebel —

in villages with no names,

in protests without microphones,

in the trembling voice of a mother

teaching her daughter the word no.

Freedom is not always loud.

Sometimes it hides in the corner

of a whisper that refuses to die.

And when they try to crush a people

into the silence of statistics,

the earth remembers their names.

The soil keeps their fingerprints,

the rivers carry their songs downstream

to where the world still listens.

Every right begins as a cry.

Every cry, a seed.

And though they may bury our dignity

beneath chains, beneath propaganda,

beneath centuries of empire —

still, something in us blooms

toward the sun of remembrance.

We are not what they say we are.

We are the light we are owed —

and even in the darkest century,

the human heart remains

the last undefeated nation.

About the poet:  Tuoyo Palmer is a poet, educator & brand consultant from Benin City, Nigeria. He writes on mental health, spirituality, culture, resilience & global opportunities.