Poetic Pathways News
Poetic Pathways Annual Poetry Contest
Theme: Immigrant Journey
stories of migration, diaspora, and home
This year’s contest centers the voices that carry memory across oceans, that build bridges between cultures, and that honor the complexity of belonging. Poetic Pathways invites immigrant and first-generation poets to share their stories in our Second Annual Poetry Contest. We are seeking poems that illuminate the immigrant journey, capturing the resilience, longing, and transformation that come with migrating from the diaspora to America.
Awards
• First Prize: $75 + a Mindfulness Journal
• Second Prize: $50 + a yearly Planner
• Third Prize: $25
*All winning poems will be published in the January 2026 issue of Bronx Vibes Zine and featured on the Poetic Pathways website.
Submission Guidelines
• Open to immigrants and first-generation writers only.
• Poems should reflect the immigrant experience of migrating from the diaspora to America and/or your experience being in America as an immigrant.
• Submit up to 3 unpublished poems, each no longer than 1 page.
• Please include your name, short bio that includes where you or your family migrated from,and contact information with your submission.
Deadline
November 30, 2025
How to Submit:
Send your poems as a single Word or PDF attachment to: [email protected]
Subject line: Poetic Pathways Poetry Contest 2025 Submission
Looking forward to reading your poems!
stories of migration, diaspora, and home
This year’s contest centers the voices that carry memory across oceans, that build bridges between cultures, and that honor the complexity of belonging. Poetic Pathways invites immigrant and first-generation poets to share their stories in our Second Annual Poetry Contest. We are seeking poems that illuminate the immigrant journey, capturing the resilience, longing, and transformation that come with migrating from the diaspora to America.
Awards
• First Prize: $75 + a Mindfulness Journal
• Second Prize: $50 + a yearly Planner
• Third Prize: $25
*All winning poems will be published in the January 2026 issue of Bronx Vibes Zine and featured on the Poetic Pathways website.
Submission Guidelines
• Open to immigrants and first-generation writers only.
• Poems should reflect the immigrant experience of migrating from the diaspora to America and/or your experience being in America as an immigrant.
• Submit up to 3 unpublished poems, each no longer than 1 page.
• Please include your name, short bio that includes where you or your family migrated from,and contact information with your submission.
Deadline
November 30, 2025
How to Submit:
Send your poems as a single Word or PDF attachment to: [email protected]
Subject line: Poetic Pathways Poetry Contest 2025 Submission
Looking forward to reading your poems!
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Bronx Poet Laureate, 2023–2025
June 2025 closed on a note of community, and reclamation. After two transformative years serving as Bronx Poet Laureate, I couldn’t have imagined a better way to mark the end of my tenure than by gathering voices that carry the heartbeat of our borough. Our June 2025 zine launch was more than an event, it was an archive of stories and creativity. The afternoon unfolded inside the Dreamyard Art Center, located in the Bronx at 1085 Washington Avenue. It was a packed space where contributors, family, and neighbors gathered, holding freshly printed copies of our latest zine. The air was electric, as though every poem whispered beneath the zine cover, waiting to rise and sing. An Evening of Readings That Became a Chorus Each contributor stood beneath the lights and read their work aloud, folding the audience into poems born from love, grief, joy, resistance, and belonging. Their words were a homage to the ancestors, those who paved the way before us, lighting the way so we would know the way forward. The voices varied — soft, sharp, braided, restless — but together, they wove a larger narrative about the Bronx as more than geography. It is rhythm and inheritance; ache and anthem. A Collective Poem, A Collective Breath The night’s most powerful moment came at the very end, when all of the contributors gathered on stage for an improvised ritual of words. Each poet read the final line of their piece, passing the microphone like an offering. One by one, the fragments came — luminous, jagged, tender — until they became a collective breath carried by many lungs. It sounded like a call-and-response between ancestors and descendants, the living and the remembered. When the last line fell into silence, the audience erupted. It was less performance than invocation, proof that even in our individual stories, there is a collective song waiting to rise. “Eruption” at the Bronx Museum of History Just days before the zine launch, I had the honor of debuting my commissioned poem “Eruption” at the Bronx Museum of History, located at 3266 Bainbridge Avenue. Standing in that space, I felt the weight of lineage pressing against the walls of the Bronx, a living archive of stories carried in our blood and breath. “Eruption” was born from that tension: the Bronx as both wound and witness. To share it there, inside a museum dedicated to preserving our history, felt like leaving an offering on the altar of our collective becoming. Closing a Chapter, Opening a Door To have these two events — the zine launch and the museum commission — unfold within days of each other felt like an intentional blessing. They were reminders that poetry is not confined to the page; it lives in the room, in the body, in the community. As my tenure as Bronx Poet Laureate comes to a close, I am filled with gratitude. These last two years have been a practice in listening deeply to the borough’s heartbeat and amplifying voices that too often go unheard. Ending this chapter surrounded by poets, collaborators, and community is more than I could have asked for. This is not an ending, only a shift in season. My work continues — on the page, in the community, and in the collective act of telling our stories aloud. To Order the June 2025 zine, please send inquiries to [email protected] |
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