May 17, 2025
10am – 6pm
Bohrer Park
The 12 INCREDIBLE finalists for this year’s high school poetry contest have been selected! The top 3 Winners will be selected by our celebrity judge.
You get to vote for Fan Favorite by clicking the “like” button at the end of each poem that you like.
All of the winners will be announced at the Book Festival on May 17th. Join us!!
I didn’t think it could snow in Texas, but in 2 flat unexciting minutes the state was buried. A modern Atlantis that no one could swim out of. Maybe trek, maybe climb, but not swim— This is ice, we’re talking… Continue Reading
The pavement glitters under the black rubber wheels of my mother’s car. “I’m Like a Bird” plays through the interior of the Prius, we exit the highway to a part of town I have never been. Old neighborhoods with their… Continue Reading
Civic duty, a job to do, For me and for you,. Lend a helping hand, don’t turn away, Help someone out, each and every day. Vote when it’s time, let your voice be heard, Your vote can speak louder than… Continue Reading
I asked my friend for his cookie He muttered to me no, why should I? I reminded him about another time when we sat at the lunch table When I ever so graciously gave him my chips. He rudely insulted… Continue Reading
I Fight for Love, Unsullied –After Jack Kerouac And soon I will be many, twisting shadows into something more than absence, dreaming one step beyond fantastical and purer than iodine. Golden, the way we will march, the day- ’s sour… Continue Reading
When I was no older than nine, I was told that sentences always start with capital letters. It’s a feeble lesson, that’s on the microscale of difficulty, but I happened to struggle with it for quite some time as a… Continue Reading
We the people, build towers tall enough to scrape the sky, Tech that is from a distant sci-fi world interpreted as our duty to improve and reach for more To fly higher and higher Using our imagination to form… Continue Reading
Some days, the city silent I’ll walk south-east and see the monument Rise above the hill of home Picture myself a strong-boned stag, Black bear treading dusky river, Gull gliding over Roosevelt amid the choppers, Catfish slinking ‘neath the muddy… Continue Reading
I watch my dollars feed holes in hungry roads, Call out to the trees for strength to lift bricks, Sink themselves into textbooks and envelopes until the ink is too opaque for mistakes. They burn as they slide from my… Continue Reading
Your country is a bookshelf. Your state, your city, your town, your neighborhood. Scattered along sidewalks, sorted throughout schools, sitting in shops, are books. Hardcover, paperback. Dusty, pristine, and everything in between. Some flutter open as you walk by, Others… Continue Reading
a thread of gold in the fabric we weave winding together to make a tapestry a shout, a call, a voice unknown represents us, together all sewn it whispers but it also screams despite falling apart at the seams a… Continue Reading
take a seat – yes, right there’s fine, get comfortable or don’t all i need’s your eyes anyhow burn them into this, just like that take it in did you know 49 percent of Americans want 51 percent want 33… Continue Reading
High school students from across the Washington Metropolitan Area were invited to submit short poems to the Gaithersburg Book Festival High School Poetry Contest.
This year, the prompt was “Civic Duty.”