New York, NY (April 20, 2023)—In honor of Earth Day, which will take place on April 22, the Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce the 2023 winners of the Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize, which honors exceptional poems that help readers recognize the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment. The winners were selected by climate scientist and author Dr. Peter Kalmus and poet Matthew Olzmann. This annual prize was launched in 2019 with generous support from Treehouse Investments, LLC.
The winning poems and poets are:
First place: “Lullaby” by John James (to be published in Poem-a-Day on Earth Day, April 22, 2023)
Second place: “Playing with Bees” by RK Fauth (to be published in Poem-a-Day on April 29, 2023)
Third place: “Though from Here I Can’t Smell the Smoke” by Allison Hutchcraft (to be published in Poem-a-Day on May 6, 2023)
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 800,000+ individuals each day via email and podcast, on Poets.org, and across social media.