Poetry Contest 2024

2024 Anita McAndrews Award poetry Contest

About the contest – The Anita McAndrews Award Poetry Contest was established in 2006, by Stazja McFadyen, co-founder of Poets for Human Rights, in honor and remembrance of Anita Grosvenor McAndrews (1924-2005) a remarkable woman who was a poet, writer, award-winning journalist, human rights advocate, prolific artist, and mother of seven. Anita’s daughters Kate Sweet and Anita McAndrews Welch have faithfully funded the cash prizes for contest winners.

Judge – HEIDI ZEIGLER, raised in Texas, teaches and writes in Mexico City. Herpoems appear and are forthcoming in The Indianapolis Review, descant, Wild Roof Journal, Kaleidoscoped Magazine, and di-verse-city anthology, among others. She’s been a workshop leader in the Feria Internacional del Libro Monterrey, Mexico, and received her MFA from UT El Paso.

1 st Prize –

Kakuma Refugee Camp

by Brian Donnell James

She dances under the heat of red suns, in atmospheres of dust
And sways in rhythms of joy…unseen, unheard
She carries a message for the world, you cannot measure the expanse of her heart
For even in the flatness of this barren, isolated land she twirls under big sky vastness
And billowed clouds, She sees the curvature of earth beyond the mountains 
Her feet are covered in makeshift sandals fashioned from frayed rubber
She stomps a foot to shake the clay ladened ground
So mama Africa feels her praise and gratitude
For hers is the texture of origin reborn in the exile of this,
An encampment erected by runaways, who have fled from certain death 
Where loose cloth wavering in winds, form window treatments and shutters
In dwellings of corrugated metal and decayed wood
They the people were wavering in winds, now sewn together to form peace
So Kakuma now wears “love” as her favorite dress
For here it is proper to be courteous, because among those who have the least
Dignity here it seems is always affordable
And here, where the opal opulence of stars shimmer diamonds
Adorning night skies like earrings and young ones lay nestled under candlelight
Where books are read and poetry is written and young ones giggle before resting
Parents with a tear must only offer truth as a bedtime story
There will be hard days before them, misery can be found the world over
Yes, there is loneliness beyond the mountains of your existence
But you, who dance to despair and sing through poverty
A people who have fled death and bound together to form peace
Who stomps feet to shake the clay laden ground
So that Mama Africa feels your praise and gratitude
Proves yet still there is happiness as well
Life can still be what we choose it to be

So I promise you, through my words
I will take the seeds of your smiles, and humbleness
The conviction in your songs planted in me here today, I will grow and replenish it
I will rejoice and scream over mountains, over seas, across this earth 
So that we who have found ourselves in sunken places can know elation again
No, Kakuma you were never alone
So dance, under the heat of red suns and in atmospheres of dust
And sway in rhythms of joy, I see you
I hear you clearly, your message cannot be contained…...
You cannot measure the expanse of the heart

About the poet -

Brian Donnell James has won many awards and recognitions for poetry
including the United Nations, National Endowment for the Arts, Carolina Prize for Literature, The Poetry Society of London, The Poetry Society of Virginia, America’s Next Author Finalist (TV Pilot) produced by Emmy award winner Kwame Alexander and NY Times bestseller Jason Reynolds, and many more. Old Dominion University has listed
his work in the papers of their literary database of fine poetry. His work has been featured as a part of an honors colloquium sponsored by Dr. Hiram Larew at Oregon State University, and the University of Georgia. He lives In Manassas, Va.

2 nd prize -

The Still Small Possibility of Justice

by Judith Janoo

The Still Small Possibility of Justice    
                  hope is action  —Grace Paley  
 
Any day now 
news will bend
like cosmos stems
toward the sun, 
marches will 
render questions 
safe to ask, 
considered,
as tongues turn
from intimidation, 
prayer flags sailing over
wide circles of children
mourning another 
student’s death,       
compelled to accept      
a quest for endless wealth 
in a republic of guns
filling pockets of those
profiting from fear,

 
when a stanza can speak 
to the inner peace
of gathering cosmos seeds, 
in refusing to name 
a corporation human,      
a brother enemy 
a sister voiceless 
a child defenseless, 
offering soup on streets, 
stories at the general store,
arresting what war we can 
in verses spoken 
from a woman’s wide lap 
long after she’s gone. 
About the poet - Judith Janoo's poetry has appeared in journals including, Pedestal
Magazine, Euphony and the Fish Anthology.  
She is a contributing editor of the Mountain Troubadour, and has published two poetry
collections, After Effects, 
and Just This.  Her poem Take to the Streets, February 15, 2003 won 1 st prize in the
2017 Anita McAndrews Award poetry contest.
Honorable Mention – Refuge by Brenna Manuel
Refuge
He dangled
the last piece of summer 
by a fish hook 
from his pocket-he asked,
“Do you have internet yet?”
“No, not until the end of the month,”
I meant
I’ll have money by then to pay, 
anyway, it doesn’t matter-
I like
the stuffed chair at the library, 
the lingering frost 
of chemicals still left on the carpet
from two or three months before
when the crew came in; and I 
fled to the gazebo outback,

with the wood frame door
flopping its screen ear 
But this is where
I come to drown in books
and other people’s talk, like now,
as the young librarian searches 
for the man’s lost birth certificate- 
he says he was born 
at home and doesn’t
know how to use the mouse, so
she keeps on looking
for his proof of existence for more than an hour, 
as he peers over her shoulder
and occasionally lifts his brow 
when he senses a nibble.

About the poet -

Brenna Manuel received a B.F.A. in Painting at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, and an M.F.A. in Sculpture at the City University of New York. She taught Humanities at Franklin Pierce University for sixteen years, and now she writes stories and poems in the rural New Hampshire countryside.

_________________________________________________________

2024 Renee Duke Youth Award poetry contest

1 st prize –

Voices of Freedom

by Vivaan Kumar

We’re born with voices, born to speak,
With dreams to chase, and futures sleek.
Yet some are bound by unseen chains,
And walk through life in silent pains.
The right to speak, the right to choose,
To walk through life, no fear to lose,
To love, to hope, to simply be—
These are the rights that set us free.
But many hearts are locked in strife,
Denied the gift of peaceful life.
Some cannot dream, some cannot soar,
For they are trapped behind closed doors.
The world is wide, the sky is clear,

We all should live without fear.
To be ourselves, to find our way,
Is what all humans should embrace.
So let us rise, let voices sing,
For justice, peace, and everything.
For all deserve the chance to stand,
To walk with pride, hand in hand.

About the poet –

Vivaan Kumar is 11 years old, and lives in New Delhi, India. She is in
the 6 th grade.

Honorable mention -

If Not Us

by Avishi Gurnani

If Not Us

the sun sets over a field of broken promises.
a woman stands in a factory line.
her hands are darkened with coal
and the indignity she faces day after day.
her work feeds the machines
but not her children.
a man is pulled from his home,
thrown into a box meant for thieves, burglars,
murderers.
caged for the crime of believing
the world could be better,
for dreaming of freedom for all,
for wishing for dignity for everyone.
but he is just a whisper in the wind.
a child walks barefoot through dust,
small frame bent
under firewood too heavy,
dreams too distant.
his scream swallowed
by silence.

three lives—
souls,
destinies,
entwined to the same fate:
to be faceless, voiceless, nameless.
unseen, unheard, unknown.

if not us,
who will speak the words
that ripple outward,
finding ears, opening eyes?
if not us,
who will write their story,
unfolding in every
corner of our world?
if not us,
who will stand up,
so doors can open,
voices can soar,
and courage can spread like wildfire—
igniting hearts, minds, dreams, lives.
so the woman can feed her family,
so the man can return home,
so the child can wear shoes.
so we can learn their names
Listen
Listen, please. To the hungry,
to the empty hands, to the open palms
and parched lips.
Listen to the children,
to the homeless,
to the people on the streets,
on the beach, on the train, in the mine,
at the factory, at home, at school,
at the park. To all of these, listen—please.
Listen to their dreams:
seas of blue honey, life teeming.
Flowers that bloom and sway
in the wind. Sense of overwhelming
safety. Listen to the weary,
listen to the unseen. Listen:
the neighbors next door are singing.
Listen to their sighs, to the pots
and pans in the backdrop, clanging.
Listen to the voiceless,
to the unheard stories,
to the unnoticed lives.
Do you hear it? There—humming
like laughter in the breeze:
our shared humanity

and our shared rights.
Born free and equal in dignity,
we share this responsibility:
right to life, right to liberty,
right to nationality, right to freedom of thought,
freedom of religion, freedom of expression;
right to peaceful assembly, right to rest,
right to security and privacy
and participation in government.
(Do you hear it all? At all?)
Listen: the world is breathing
with the shifting of tides. Across the sea,
someone just like you and me
breathes, exhaling, and it sounds soft,
like rushing sand, like breath.
Like the words listen, please.

About the poet –

Avisha Gurnani lives in Singapore where she attends Raffles Girls’
School, Secondary.