2026 Teen Poetry Contest Winners
Happiness is like the color of a lollipop
it sounds like christmas when you were young
opening your gifts at a family reunion with your cousins
it smells like a beautiful day at your grandmas house
you step outside and it smells like her roses in the
front porch
it tastes like when you get home after a long day
and you eat your mothers cooking.
it looks like seeing your mother smile and seeing
her having a good time.
it feels like a freshly bought fluffly comfy blanket.
and you tuck in your bed.
Jose E.
Blue Ridge School
CAMPBELL LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
Tsunami
The ocean drains like a herd of deer
galloping from the city. Starfish
curl and uncurl as if gasping
for the waves' return. They diminish
further, wind stirring old sand it
never should have touched. A wail
crashes, dark waves melding with
the sky and falling towards land. Gales
come, shoving and ripping to
escape. The birds flock away, deft
in the rough skies. The ocean
holds— silence, now— and a breath
out. Then, water reclaims land and
trees become the ocean floor.
Khan Lab School
CUPERTINO LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
Beyond the Streetlight
Somewhere there is a streetlight
Far but not too far away
And beyond that little streetlight
My mind wanders to stay
Somewhere beyond the streetlight
Is a world I’ve never known
And maybe someday I’ll know what it’s like
But for now, I dream alone
Somewhere beyond the streetlight
Kids are laughing in the park
Mama’s singing in the doorway
Soft and sweet against the dark
Somewhere beyond the streetlight
There’s a birthday party with cake
Balloons tied to a backyard fence
For a boy from down the lake
Somewhere beyond the streetlight
There is a girl just like me
She is looking out her bedroom at night
Wondering how life on the other side of the streetlight might be
Somewhere beyond the streetlight
She sees what I can’t touch
The dinners, the dances, the father’s smile
The lives that don’t miss much
And maybe someday we’ll both take flight
From these shadows we've always known
But for now, beyond the streetlight
We each must dream alone.
Dhriti K
Challenger School
Grade: 8
CUPERTINO LIBRARY
High School Winner
Unfinished Cadences
My voice dies, another hesitation
Eyes wait expectantly, crow’s feet creasing
I turn over scraps of tones and memory
Exhale, glance down at clasped, veined hands waiting
Grasp wildly for words long hidden beneath dust
My mouth opens in uncertainty,
syllables undecided, their shapes vague
I repeat words already spoken,
a thought I cannot finish, my single anchor
Across from me, confusion flickers
Then comprehension, grandma nods,
answers, “say it in English, I’ll understand”
Frustration twists my tongue
Shame rises, choking my throat
I shake my head
Stare into the familiar lines of her skin,
as if she could interpret my thoughts
through pure hope and wishing
My hands rise on their own, insistent
They gesture, try to shape meaning
in empty air between us
I tug at words sinking below the surface
Try shaking them free from the easy ones,
the ones I've been piling up, that rise naturally to my lips
They've buried this cadence, strewn too far in fragments
I'd forgotten it was worth more than gold,
to have such a melody etched in your bones
In the end, I stop searching, I've hidden that song too deep
The louder, enduring language lives, yet will not help me now
“It’s nothing,” I say, disappointment echoes in silence, “not important
Madison T.
Homestead High School
Grade: 9
GILROY LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
Sisters
She’s my sister but I don’t know her.
She is changing before my eyes into someone I don’t know.
I try to be a good older sister… but I don’t know how.
I have no older sister… anymore… no role model.
No life with her, my older sister. She was taken from me by death.
Now my younger sister is growing with only me to lead her… but I don’t know how
Because I don’t have someone to lead me.
Charlotte K.
Ocean Grove Charter School
Grade: 6
GILROY LIBRARY
High School Winner
Secrets
They end up everywhere
Written on walls
Carved into trees
They slip from our lips
Into the seas
They are known by all
Yet known by none
They have twisted and tied up my tongue
I hold not one
Not two
Or three
But hundreds you will never see
They are marred by guilt, by shame, by fear
They have led to laughter, pain, and tears
They slice and scar
And bleed and bruise
They come in so many shades and so many hues
Sofia A.
Gilroy High School
Grade: 11
LOS ALTOS LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
Wonder
Poetry is the ocean,
deep and mysterious.
It washes up new ideas and
pulls in tides of understanding.
Poetry is a tree,
simple yet strong.
It plants the seed of thought
And branches into diff erent directions
Poetry is a song,
like a heartbeat on a drum.
It dances on the waves
and twirls in the rain.
Poetry is a dream,
free in the wind.
Bound by no chain
but wonder.
Jeevan S.
Los Altos Junior High School
Grade: 6
LOS ALTOS LIBRARY
High School Winner
The Body Under REVIEW: [Living Matter]
when I am stripped bare
of skin&layers we name ourselves and what makes us—
human,
when I am only blood&cells&rot,
what is metric of measurement by which I am measured—
now?
census records&blood quanta&naturalization papers&birth certificates
[proof] incised into paper.
on a federal registry—I
know I am buried there,
somewhere.
this knowledge of me,
this certification
and documentation
[of my actuality
of my existence
of every irrepressible
breath.]
still, somewhere, somehow
a pulse crawls through discordance,
a memory of warmth beneath paper,
as if file itself remembers
sound of my body
[before it was VERIFIED.]
proof by knowledge,
acquiescence by record,
vitality by archive and catalog alone?
somewhere, I know, a hand reaches—
counting [bone&matter&conscience&psyche&habitude&intrepidity&virtue]
counting absence—
absence of [all things]
trying to measure
what [cannot
be] measured.
Heidi W.
Los Altos High School
Grade: 9
MILPITAS LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
The Beam
There is a beam,
a thin, metal beam next to the school,
where all the children and tweens balance on.
Always.
It’s dangerous, supposedly, six feet above the ground, but no one cares.
But the eight-year-old girl balancing in front of me now is too slow.
Too, too slow with her tiny mincing steps.
And something rears up inside me and I shove her.
She falls, but instinctively grabs my sleeve
so I fall too, headfirst.
And I hit the ground at an angle.
I think I smell blood, my head hurts like lightning.
I hear someone calling the hospital, they’re screaming into the phone.
Soon bright flashing lights come, through my half closed eyes.
By the time people reach me, I black out.
I wake in the hospital, in a room that smells like rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.
The nurses tell me my head is fine; well, it’s not too bad.
I have stitches on my head now, a long row of sutures.
I have a concussion that makes the room spin every now and then.
My parents come to cry over me, but I keep thinking about that eight-year-old girl I shoved.
I go back to school in a few weeks, stitches still in place, but the world doesn’t spin anymore.
And I’m treated like a survivor of some sort.
Some blame me, because now the teachers have banned walking on the beam.
Most treat me like a pitiful case.
And one day, the eight-year-old girl comes to me.
She gives me a scraggly bouquet of daisies, with their yellow heads and sad white fringes.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Do you know who pushed you?” I ask, guilt weighing on my chest.
“Wasn’t it you?” she says. “But I’m still really sorry.”
And she leaves me with the apology and the flowers I don’t deserve.
Elena G.
Thomas Russell Middle School Grade
Grade: 7
MILPITAS LIBRARY
High School Winner
When Saigon Became Ho Chi Minh City
The smell of bún bò huế
stays in the kitchen.
It settles on my a&f cardigan
following me to first period English class
The present feels like something we didn’t choose,
but kept anyway.
I think about how scents linger
holding on to the past,
even when the windows are open.
How Vietnamese immigrants
carry baggage in our diaspora
Cardboard boxes filled with American
goods to give to our relatives who stayed behind,
but that homecoming trip is always long in coming.
I remember reading Khaled Hosseini
How he wrote about a way to be good again
by acting courageously when others are silent
Or thinking about how different things would be
if there was never a Fall of Saigon.
My parents’ parents would not have left
And my parents would not have met
Then I would not be here.
And I think about how history changed on April 30, 1975:
Soy sauce at every dinner, Tết gatherings, and makeshift hammocks
How I grew up between English and tiếng Việt, pancakes and congee,
How someone else’s arrival
can feel familiar
but not the same.
How diversity matters.
So when I saw Afghan families in Fremont on Eid al‑Fitr,
remembering the Kabul Airlift on TV,
I felt something shift.
Minute,
but tremorous.
Understanding is a border
we open slowly.
Assimilation
is something learned
by noticing.
Sophie T.
Valley Christian High School
Grade: 10
MORGAN HILL LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
What if The Room Refused To Forget
| The book lies open on the nightstand, a mouth stopped mid-sentence. Its pages curl inward, yellowing like fingernails that kept growing after you left.A thin bookmark— a receipt from a place long closed— holds the story hostage where your eyes abandoned it.Dust falls in soft apology, coating the lamp, the water glass, the breath you never finished. The room has learned reverence.Your clock froze at 2:17— time nailed to the wall, marking where living ended. Outside, the mailbox aches. I speak to you anyway— |
They say death happens twice: once when the body empties, again when your name is last spoken.I feel that second one circling, a vulture made of time, as photographs fade into ruin.One day your coat will warm a stranger. Your book will be finished by unfamiliar hands. All of you reduced to a thin dash in stone pretending it can hold a life.But tonight, this room still knows you— in the dust, the frozen clock, the book holding its breath. You linger in the dust. Between seconds, |
Lewis. H. Britton Middle School
Grade: 8
MORGAN HILL LIBRARY
High School Winner
The pews are filled this afternoon.
Black clothes, blurry eyes.
These people are sad.
The Girls in the front, their mascara runs down their faces and
“Wipe it off,”
the woman says.
They do, but
it smudges.
The Woman can’t erase their tears.
The Man in the front has a loud voice, so loud that it echoes in the peoples’ heads,
“Surround yourself with love and peace in these trying times.”
He must be addressing the floor, because he doesn’t look up.
He doesn’t look up to see the Girls with their smudged faces and sad eyes and
all the people who can’t stop looking at the
singular photo of
Her.
A friend to all, family to some.
A lover to
One.
And there She sits.
In the back, purposefully hidden from view.
The heartbroken Lover.
She cries too, but her tears are red, hot, angry.
Angry that they took Her away.
Siri Gudapuri
9th Grade, Morgan Hill
Angry that She wasn’t enough to make Her stay.
Angry that the Man preached love, but not all love, only the love he thought was right.
And apparently Her love wasn’t right.
And as the sermon ends, and the coffin is taken out into the courtyard,
the Girls are not allowed to follow.
Their heads down, they follow the Woman away,
leaving the heartbroken Lover behind.
She stands there, watching as the casket is lowered into the Earth.
And as rain starts to pour from the dark clouds,
and everybody runs inside the sacred building,
the Lover stays.
Enraged.
And the sky seemed to be equally as enraged, as
it cried angry tears that sent lightning through the sky, sent big booms of thunder, and
cold hailstones that littered the ground.
Soon, it became quiet.
The storm passed.
The sun broke through the clouds, golden light filling the grounds.
And there the Lover still stood, tearful.
Tearful, but not because of pain.
Tears of joy.
Because the people who reduced Her love to nothing,
they were all wrong.
Her love was not a sin.
For Heaven cried,
and then opened its gates.
SARATOGA LIBRARY
Middle School Winner
The Climb
Swiss cable cars,
Rising to the peak of Mount Titlis,
Peel the emerald pelt of the meadows from my feet.
Bells of amber cows scattered on a velvet rug,
Send a faint, metallic hum vibrating through me.
Swiss cable cars,
Rising to the peak of Mount Titlis,
Contrast the greenery with jagged waves of rock,
Forever frozen against a sky as clear as blue glass.
In the glacier’s turquoise throat,
The fossilized air stings my lungs.
Swiss cable cars,
Rising to the peak of Mount Titlis,
Reach the suspension bridge,
A silver thread hanging over a vertical abyss.
My heart flutters like a caged bird against my ribs.
Up here,
The peaks rest like silent soldiers,
Their heads brush clouds of heavy silk.
Swiss cable cars,
Risen to the peak of Mount Titlis,
Are so high,
The moon is close enough to touch.
Redwood Middle School
Grade: 8
SARATOGA LIBRARY
High School Winner
Words of Remembrance
His fingertips graze the lace of his pillowcase,
threads trembling with the breath of thinning hours,
pale blue—like a morning sky folded into cotton.
His veins rise softly, rivers remembering their paths,
currents whispering of the Li River my mother once knew.
I think of Lao Ye,
his presence lingering like incense in a quiet room,
his blood a hush beneath my own—
an inheritance my mother wove into me with patient hands.
Lao, old in Chinese, stirs dust and temple-light,
a word that drifts like ash through the long corridors of memory.
And I think of Grandpère,
my father’s father, his gentleness dissolving
in the cool sweetness of Pastilles de Vichy.
Vieux, old in French, tastes of flowers left to dry
in balconied stone, their fragrance fading into dusk.
The night took them softly—one carried by river-light,
the other by shadows folding themselves into corners,
paper loosening at the seams.
They left the world as dusk leaves water:
quietly, careful not to trouble the surface.
Yet absence rolls within me like a heavy boule,
rounding the edges of who I believed myself to be.
Zǒu le, 走了; décédé, mort—
each word a different bitterness on the tongue,
durian-dark, vinegar-bright,
syllables shimmering like stained glass
catching and splitting the same fragile light.
Two languages of loss,
two histories warming my palms as if cupped by fire.
Their worlds gather around me like a hearth.
And here I stand between them,
a bridge stitched from mismatched alphabets,
trying to bear the soft, unyielding weight
of every word that means gone.
Maxime S.
Saratoga High School
Grade: 11