Today, April 22, recognized as Earth Day, the Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce the 2021 winners of the Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize, which honors exceptional poems that help make real for readers the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment. The winners were selected by poet Camille T. Dungy and climate solutions leader Katharine K. Wilkinson. This annual prize was launched in 2019 with generous support from Treehouse Investments, LLC, a social impact firm.
The winning poems and poets are:
First place: “Insomniami” by Ariel Francisco (to be published in Poem-a-Day on April 24, 2021)
Second place: “Origin Story” by Leah Naomi Green (to be published in Poem-a-Day on May 1, 2021)
Third place: “Vanishing” by Brittney Corrigan (to be published in Poem-a-Day on May 8, 2021)
First place will receive $1,000; second place, $750; and third place, $500. In addition, all three poems will be published in the popular Poem-a-Day series, which is distributed to 500,000+ readers.