Columbia Granger's World of Poetry®
2026 Student Poetry Contest Winners
2026 Student Poetry Contest Winners
In celebration of National Poetry Month, Columbia University Press is pleased to announce the winners of the ninth annual Columbia Granger's World of Poetry® Student Poetry Contest.
WINNING POEMS
A History Lesson
Nanjing Massacre, December 1937
Nanjing Massacre, December 1937
inspired by "Jigsaw" by Melissa Stein
To forget history is an act of betrayal.
He feeds her hawthorn sweets. Covers his daughter's eyes.
Beneath the table, they fold themselves into the street's
reddened screams, enclosed in paper-thin walls.
Citizens pile at the lip of the river, no more
than bodies stilled, gunfire blurring their faces
into artifact before the water could hide them.
Two soldiers laugh their bikes down the street, trade
swigs of sake to drown their guilt, the pity
they didn't take on the mothers.
The makeshift suitcases they carried
between them, surviving children held by the hand.
Beneath the table, he chops off her hair.
Don't worry. They won't recognize you.
In class, we spend longer reciting the names
of dust-bitten treaties than the children
left to bleed their names into the river.
In class, we memorize each date, sanitized
of the blood water, in preparation
for the multiple choice on our next test.
History is a flashlight our teachers pass out.
We aim the beams forward, moons spilling
across small patches of the world at a time.
We never see mothers through the pictures
of the memorial's stone on Google. We never watch
the white-haired bury the black-haired.
White chrysanthemums spill from their mouths.
Candy wrappers crinkle in her pocket. Bába, why
is this happening to us? Bába uncovers my eyes.
----------------
incubation ode
by Katie Kim of Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Massachusetts
inspired by "Mother Goose" by Kenneth Roxroth
You balanced me between your lifelines like a promise-held, not
cradled, in a nest of metal and hospital light-a fear you couldn't
name bubbling like a blister across your lips. You dreamt me
some God you never believed would reward you
with my slick and howling body: all splitting lips, static
hair, fingertips smudging the clear walls
between us. You mouthed words I'd later learn, your fingers printing
small clouds across the incubator's sky, colors dusting
like the bruises across your legs. Days later, tracing me
in the rearview, you drove us home. From outside, the years
chirped away, a never-ending song spilling into the night markets
baptizing Seoul. I wanted to swim, so each morning
I swam. Life jacket suffocating in your arms, I slapped
the chlorine-butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke. I didn't know
you were afraid of water, only that you believed I could solve
third-grade multiplication tables before first, your voice tack-sharp
with certainty. But forgiveness always tasted sweet as the peaches
sliced into moons on my desk each afternoon, juice staining
the sleeves of my school uniform with joy. I wanted to solve
every problem I saw: how science curdled into mud & Dad chose
leaving over listening. I never forgot the day you sold
your engagement ring, gold speckled with ten years
of dust & silence. Slick and howling, with word
I'd later learn. With metal in the August heat, hospital light
leaving itself like handprints against our skin. With ten years of sacrifice
I didn't even notice until I held it up to the light.
----------------
by Yan Zhang of Hangzhou Foreign Languages School, Hangzhou, China
inspired by "A Supermarket in California" by Allen Ginsberg
Once more, I am stranded in the moonless
passageway, exhaust fumes and food waste
festering the rims, wet summer wind
stirring my hair, thick strands sticking to my forehead
like peeling mangos to pavement. Bottle flies. Smashed
bricks. Sofa shredding its worn-out linen. Cushions
crusting beneath the stacked conduits, wooden planks
gift-wrapped. Hangzhou's street lanterns offering
a dizzying yellow haze that spills over the moonless
wet market—our silhouettes gone, blurring
in September's grief: a low hum that sizzles
with the sound of someone's skewers pressing against
the grill's heated iron plate. But what else
would I expect? I am stranded. Rotten
eggs, days-old cucumbers stinking a pool
of rainwater (or blood-water). Salt
on granite. Fish gills flapping the cutting board.
Red-cheeked men in greasy aprons shuffling
sweet potatoes into their hellish ovens. Then, I see
a pair of wavering eyes: cherry-colored, startled, staring
right at me. A rabbit. A rabbit.
"Fifteen yuan," says the owner. "Per kilogram."
"You can stir-fry it with peppercorn and ginger."
Somewhere down the alley, a girl's rusted tricycle
sings rough-edged flakes of iron into the air.
Overhead, a plane pushes swallows past the clouds
as the sky pales with nothingness. I see the faint flash of planes
behind grey tendrils. I hear a metallic shrill start to ring
from a freight truck nearby—DANGER. DANGER. DANGER.
To the owner, I say, "I'm taking it home."
----------------
by Ananya Mandrekar of Millburn High School, Millburn, New Jersey
inspired by "America" by Langston Hughes
A is for american, my nationality (i think) i was
Born here in a hospital with a baby bracelet and birth certificate but still
Confused for being
Desi because my name doesn't pronounce well in
English was my first language, the first words to kiss my ears, the
First curse word i heard was english and it came from a
Group of people who said that they
Hate the slime and smell of the indians, the ones who
Immigrated to this country to steal their
Jobs and their wives and their greencards. america is the only home i
Know and i can't go 'back to where i came from' because i've only
Lived here, in a cul-de-sac suburb where mornings are a mumble of liberty and justice for all, but
Marathi was the language i spoke first, when i didn't
Need to prove that
Outsider is not my identity, but my father and my mother were called
PIGS of their american college, Poor Indian Graduate Students plaguing population, who never
Quit to go back to where they came from,
Refused to let their dream die to be called
Sickness killing the country, because india or america,
Transplant in both places — here, look at me,
Uncivilized eating with my hands,
Visiting there for two weeks, and i still don't know
Why i am the one to
X-out "asian," choose "prefer not to say":
Yesterday my friends discovered my indian-ess and i became an animal from the
Zoo.
----------------
by Natalie Zhang of Lakeside School, Seattle, Washington
inspired by "Child and Mother" by Eugene Field
Once, I saw myself through the water, watching my fingers
As they cut through the pressure, impenetrable under the light.
That day, I had been washing myself clean of retrospect, that skin
Layered over my skin, the smell of sex lingering like twilight.
I told you I didn't want to be liberated, then. I wanted to stay,
Here, scavenging for another man to validate my transparency, the moonlight
Binding identity to body like a ghost. ma, here's what they don't understand:
When everyone has used you, you become a mop. Absorbing limelight,
Craving visibility, searching after all that you have lost. I have lost, ma.
I'm running my hands down these pickled thighs, watching the sunlight
Impale my lucidness, this back and forth motion drumming to the beat of the showerhead—
My fingers, tough and supernatural. My hair ebbing into the angular skylight,
I've become unrecognizable. Irreconceivable. The slow, rotting tension
between nonconsent and silence. Listen to me, ma. I didn't want to gaslight
My youth with a burning house. I wanted to depose of it—gentrify myself
Into currency, or compensation. I wanted to evict myself from the spotlight
And nurture my halfness back into good health. You told me in your country,
I am only a sin, a product of placenta and good 'ol capitalism. But this light
Is not enough. I want more, ma. I need to learn what it means to
Be expelled out of my body. I want to consume all of it: the impenetrable starlight,
The spattered rain studding my teeth, the whiteness disposed of between my legs.
I want to know youth like a mother. I want to be visible without this light.
----------------
See the winning poems from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025
See contest rules here
inspired by "Mother Goose" by Kenneth Roxroth
You balanced me between your lifelines like a promise-held, not
cradled, in a nest of metal and hospital light-a fear you couldn't
name bubbling like a blister across your lips. You dreamt me
some God you never believed would reward you
with my slick and howling body: all splitting lips, static
hair, fingertips smudging the clear walls
between us. You mouthed words I'd later learn, your fingers printing
small clouds across the incubator's sky, colors dusting
like the bruises across your legs. Days later, tracing me
in the rearview, you drove us home. From outside, the years
chirped away, a never-ending song spilling into the night markets
baptizing Seoul. I wanted to swim, so each morning
I swam. Life jacket suffocating in your arms, I slapped
the chlorine-butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke. I didn't know
you were afraid of water, only that you believed I could solve
third-grade multiplication tables before first, your voice tack-sharp
with certainty. But forgiveness always tasted sweet as the peaches
sliced into moons on my desk each afternoon, juice staining
the sleeves of my school uniform with joy. I wanted to solve
every problem I saw: how science curdled into mud & Dad chose
leaving over listening. I never forgot the day you sold
your engagement ring, gold speckled with ten years
of dust & silence. Slick and howling, with word
I'd later learn. With metal in the August heat, hospital light
leaving itself like handprints against our skin. With ten years of sacrifice
I didn't even notice until I held it up to the light.
----------------
Liuxia Street
Hangzhou
Hangzhou
inspired by "A Supermarket in California" by Allen Ginsberg
Once more, I am stranded in the moonless
passageway, exhaust fumes and food waste
festering the rims, wet summer wind
stirring my hair, thick strands sticking to my forehead
like peeling mangos to pavement. Bottle flies. Smashed
bricks. Sofa shredding its worn-out linen. Cushions
crusting beneath the stacked conduits, wooden planks
gift-wrapped. Hangzhou's street lanterns offering
a dizzying yellow haze that spills over the moonless
wet market—our silhouettes gone, blurring
in September's grief: a low hum that sizzles
with the sound of someone's skewers pressing against
the grill's heated iron plate. But what else
would I expect? I am stranded. Rotten
eggs, days-old cucumbers stinking a pool
of rainwater (or blood-water). Salt
on granite. Fish gills flapping the cutting board.
Red-cheeked men in greasy aprons shuffling
sweet potatoes into their hellish ovens. Then, I see
a pair of wavering eyes: cherry-colored, startled, staring
right at me. A rabbit. A rabbit.
"Fifteen yuan," says the owner. "Per kilogram."
"You can stir-fry it with peppercorn and ginger."
Somewhere down the alley, a girl's rusted tricycle
sings rough-edged flakes of iron into the air.
Overhead, a plane pushes swallows past the clouds
as the sky pales with nothingness. I see the faint flash of planes
behind grey tendrils. I hear a metallic shrill start to ring
from a freight truck nearby—DANGER. DANGER. DANGER.
To the owner, I say, "I'm taking it home."
----------------
Abecedarian for ABCDs
ABCD - American Born Confused Desi
ABCD - American Born Confused Desi
inspired by "America" by Langston Hughes
A is for american, my nationality (i think) i was
Born here in a hospital with a baby bracelet and birth certificate but still
Confused for being
Desi because my name doesn't pronounce well in
English was my first language, the first words to kiss my ears, the
First curse word i heard was english and it came from a
Group of people who said that they
Hate the slime and smell of the indians, the ones who
Immigrated to this country to steal their
Jobs and their wives and their greencards. america is the only home i
Know and i can't go 'back to where i came from' because i've only
Lived here, in a cul-de-sac suburb where mornings are a mumble of liberty and justice for all, but
Marathi was the language i spoke first, when i didn't
Need to prove that
Outsider is not my identity, but my father and my mother were called
PIGS of their american college, Poor Indian Graduate Students plaguing population, who never
Quit to go back to where they came from,
Refused to let their dream die to be called
Sickness killing the country, because india or america,
Transplant in both places — here, look at me,
Uncivilized eating with my hands,
Visiting there for two weeks, and i still don't know
Why i am the one to
X-out "asian," choose "prefer not to say":
Yesterday my friends discovered my indian-ess and i became an animal from the
Zoo.
----------------
Transparency Ghazal
inspired by "Child and Mother" by Eugene Field
Once, I saw myself through the water, watching my fingers
As they cut through the pressure, impenetrable under the light.
That day, I had been washing myself clean of retrospect, that skin
Layered over my skin, the smell of sex lingering like twilight.
I told you I didn't want to be liberated, then. I wanted to stay,
Here, scavenging for another man to validate my transparency, the moonlight
Binding identity to body like a ghost. ma, here's what they don't understand:
When everyone has used you, you become a mop. Absorbing limelight,
Craving visibility, searching after all that you have lost. I have lost, ma.
I'm running my hands down these pickled thighs, watching the sunlight
Impale my lucidness, this back and forth motion drumming to the beat of the showerhead—
My fingers, tough and supernatural. My hair ebbing into the angular skylight,
I've become unrecognizable. Irreconceivable. The slow, rotting tension
between nonconsent and silence. Listen to me, ma. I didn't want to gaslight
My youth with a burning house. I wanted to depose of it—gentrify myself
Into currency, or compensation. I wanted to evict myself from the spotlight
And nurture my halfness back into good health. You told me in your country,
I am only a sin, a product of placenta and good 'ol capitalism. But this light
Is not enough. I want more, ma. I need to learn what it means to
Be expelled out of my body. I want to consume all of it: the impenetrable starlight,
The spattered rain studding my teeth, the whiteness disposed of between my legs.
I want to know youth like a mother. I want to be visible without this light.
----------------
See the winning poems from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025
See contest rules here
