2025 Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards Ceremony Registration Form

Kindergarten

• Winner: Alantis Martin, “Happy Days” (Peoria)

1st Grade

• Winner: Essence Dean, “Loves Me” (Chicago)*
• Winner: Jennifer Eklund, “Ballgown, Please!” (Peoria)
• Honorable Mention: Major Garvan, “Field Trip Day” (Chicago)

2nd Grade

• Winner: Jermany Ashford, “Wind and Grass” (Peoria)
• Winner: Oliver Spanner, “That Terrible Thing” (Oak Park)
• Honorable Mention: Maryam Zeeshan, “Rain” (Chicago)

3rd Grade

• Winner: Delilah Long, “The Hibiscus Flower” (Peoria)
• Winner: Rani Patel, “Stapler” (Chicago)
• Honorable Mention: Carmen Foley Strasburg, “Untitled” (Winnetka)

4th Grade

• Winner: Mya Watkins, “The Nature Walk” (Peoria)
• Winner: Bella Xia, “Our World Is Crumbling” (Des Plaines)
• Honorable Mention: Roy Conley, “Rain and Desert” (Skokie)

5th Grade

• Winner: Isabelle Lakier, “light” (Chicago)
• Winner: Ray Weitzman, “The frog on the lilypad” (Chicago)
• Honorable Mention: Anna Vermylen, “Being Me” (Chicago)

6th Grade

• Winner: Vivian Steel, “Vinegar & Sage” (Skokie)
• Winner: Matthew Tesiano Cagadas, “The Harvest of Silence” (Skokie)
• Honorable Mention: Vera Volckens, “Blitz” (Oak Park)

*Denotes a previous winner or honorable mention

7th Grade

• Winner: Eli Teper, “A Last Effort” (Champaign)
• Winner: Sophia Javier, “I am from” (Chicago)
• Honorable Mention: Caroline Field, “Eternal” (Skokie)

8th Grade

• Winner: Khloie Waterhouse, “Storm's Coming” (Cerro Gordo)
• Winner: Beatriz Whitford-Rodríguez, “intertidal” (Chicago)
• Honorable Mention: Maddy Willard, “Sculpted Lies” (Cerro Gordo)

9th Grade

• Winner: Ellie Hersher-Dale, “I Dream of Tomorrow's America” (Evanston)
• Winner: Angel’la Murray, “Dementia” (Oak Park)
• Honorable Mention: Haritha Jagadeesan Suganya, “The Quiet Gaze” (Aurora)

10th Grade

• Winner: Leonidas Leigh, “requested funeral rites” (Oswego)
• Winner: Serafina Zethmayr, “Shock and Awe, Attrition, Punishment, Boxing” (Justice)
• Honorable Mention: Zoe Cobb, “what the comb said to the black girl” (Chicago)

11th Grade

• Winner: Ruby Kemp, “Outrunning Grief” (Oswego)
• Winner: Antaya Malnati, “Nature of Destruction” (Oswego)
• Honorable Mention: Melynda Patton, “The Name I Made My Own” (Oswego)

12th Grade

• Winner: Dalila Martinez, “If They Take Her” (Chicago)
• Winner: Morgan Montoya, “Toto, I don't think we're in Chi-town anymore” (Chicago)
• Honorable Mention: Finch Shaw, “RAMBLINGS OF A SINNER AS AN ABECEDARIAN” (Lincolnshire)*

*Denotes a previous winner or honorable mention

Missing your chapbook? Contact us.

Download a chapbook or list to read the poems of previous winners.

• 2024 Chapbook
• 2023 Chapbook
• 2022 Chapbook

• 2021 Chapbook
• 2020 Winners / Honorable Mentions

Want an earlier listing of winners? Contact us.