The Impact of Poetry & Journalism
- Meera Naveen
- Apr 15
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 30

I believe this was touched upon in one of my earlier posts, but recently I came to know of a Pulitzer poetry contest called 'Fighting Words: Writing Poetry in Response to Current Events.'
In this contest, students would choose a global issue that mattered most to them, be it climate change, forest fires, health inequities, war and conflict, LGBTQ+ rights, etc.
Then, they would choose an article about a current event on one of these issues, be it a new form of sustainable agriculture, a recent wildfire that caused a lot of devastation, a new bill signed into law, etc.
After reading it, they would analyze the article and think about how similar situations are happening in their community, and how they would aim to spread a message of its importance to the public. They would finally write an empowering poem drawing from local struggles and from the article, answering these questions.
Reading through different articles and seeing different poems students as young as 12 have written, I was inspired by the way they utilized unique, personal styles, drew from lines in their respective articles, organized their stanzas and experimented with capitalized and uncapitalized letters, used intense diction, and much more. They communicate themes that resonate with particular audiences, like those about the hardships of Sri Lankan women because of climate change, those that personify objects like the Congo trees that are smuggled in East Africa.
As I delved deeper into the website's news catalog, I saw so many different articles, from direct interviews with people like those in Senegal fishing posts experiencing irrational climate effects to reports of nitrogen pollution in Florida waters that severely impact manatees.
Moreover, I learned about initiatives in different countries such as in places in Africa where there are movements to promote positive, solutions and local community-based journalism.
I had never heard about such events before, and this opened my eyes to the countless happenings around the world, both small, negative effects of global crises as well as the actions numerous activists and organizations are taking to resolve them.
To summarize, without poetry and journalism, what would we have to prove our point about the seriousness of climate change and other such issues? Scientific stats.
But for normal people, stats are just numbers, and it's hard to act just because of a few numbers seem out of place.
With deep-meaning poetry, heart-to-heart interviews, news reports about various happenings that display personal struggles and trends as well as those that spread knowledge of activists' plans to create positive change, it's much easier to gather supporters of our cause, and to achieve a common goal.
I hope more competitions and projects like this one emerge, because having a group of people to help you tackle these global issues is always better than one person.
Pulitzer Contest Link: Fighting Words Poetry Contest and Workshop

Works Cited:
Image 1 from Álvaro Serrano, Unsplash
Image 2 from Wix
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