Beneath the city's glow, where BART's lines softly weave,
A story of us begins, in the twilight of the eve.
-- Under the Stars of Valencia, Elsy M.E., BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest Winner
On Friday, April 12, the BART Art Program and BART Communications were thrilled to announce the winners of the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest 2024! You’ll find the list of winners and their poems when you scroll down this page. The winners were selected by contest judges and partners 826 Valencia and Youth Speaks – two outstanding organizations working to lift youth voices in the Bay Area.
The 31 winning poems engage with an enchanting array of forms, meter, topics, and themes. In the collection, you will find villanelles and tankas, botanic gardens and centipedes, sunsets and carrots, and even two crabs destined for a boiling pot. Our winners range in age from 14 to 19 and reside all over the Bay Area, from Foster City to Fremont, Concord to Oakland, and many cities in between.
The BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest is a celebration of the region’s youth, their expansive imaginations, and their immense capacities for compassion and creativity. And the winning poets’ fantastic work will undoubtedly delight riders passing through stations who are looking for something to do on the train other than look at their phones (sometimes your eyes need a rest from a screen, right?).
The 31 winning poems, written by local youth ages 13 to 19, are now available in BART’s free Short Edition Story Dispensers (locations below) as well as our Short Edition online story portal. We highly recommend getting a printed poem from a story dispenser. To get a contest poem, hover your hand over the “5 Min” button. When the dispenser prints the poem, you’ll find a special image on the bottom of the eco-friendly and recyclable paper.
These poems are collectibles, and we encourage you to take photos or film yourself getting a poem – tag us on Instagram (@sfbayarearapidtransit) or Twitter (@sfbart) and use the #BARTLines.
Purchase the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest Chapbook
Link to Railgoods.com
We are excited to announce the publication of the one-of-a-kind BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest Chapbook. The books are unique collectors’ items that contain all the winning poems from the contest and will inspire and invigorate you!
Events
On Sunday, June 2, BART and some of the winners of the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest participated in the Bay Area Book Festival's free and family-friendly Outdoor Fair.
Festivalgoers stopped by our table to write a BART “flash” poem with our award-winning poets, and in exchange, received a special prize. The poets also read their winning works to the large crowd of festivalgoers.
They also were thrilled to sell and sign the hot-off-the-presses BART Lines chapbook. The one-of-a-kind books are for sale on railgoods.com after the event.
Photos from the Bay Area Book Festival
Congratulations to the Winners of the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest
Winners listed in alphabetical order
Frames of Motion – Aashna S.
I'm from Union City, where daylight's clouds kiss – Aarzu S.
I have to think about BART now – Ana T.
Sequence Across Golden Gate Bridge – Ariel Z.
Bay Area Rapid Tankas – Bulian Jauer
Love Letter to the Bay – Carla Araujo
Haven – Elle Fardella
Where I'm From – Ellie Liew
This is the Bay – Eloisa Lin
Under the Stars of Valencia: A BART Love Story – Elsy M.E.
station conversation: where the people are – Emily T.
These Two Crabs On the Green Line are Going to Die – Francis L.
Sunsets Filled with Orange Rays of Red – Gerardo Castaneda
My Home – Gian S.
sandstone – Hunter Stoval
You see, to me – Juliet S.
A Familiar Breeze – Kiana G.
sf pride 2023 – Lia Le-Nguyen
home, forever and always. – Margaret B.
Journey Around the Bay – Matthew Guo
The Bay is Home – Nairobi Williese Barnes
the bay – Nidhi Nadgir
souvenir – Nitika Sathiya
Villanelle for 42nd St. – N.R.
A paper ticket trip down the richmond line – OG Nguyen
The Cycle – ORLY
A Work of Art – Pahal V.
bart ode – Rose Garcia
Haibun for lazy weekends in the Sunset District – Sophia T.
Bay is bae – Soyme
Where My Parents Lived – Vivian Owens
How to Read the Winning Poems
BART’s Short Edition Story Dispensers
The dispensers are free vending machines for creative writing, dispensing stories on eco-friendly recyclable, receipt-like paper. To receive a BART Lines poem, wave your hand over the button on the far right, labeled with either BART Lines sticker or “5 minutes”. Poems are randomly dispensed. The dispensers are currently located at the following stations:
Balboa Park
Downtown Berkeley
Fruitvale
Pleasant Hill
San Leandro (pending installation)
About the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest
The contest, which launched in late winter, solicited poetry from local teenagers who live in the five counties where BART operates. We asked that the poems loosely relate to the theme “Bay is Home.”
By providing a forum for teen voices and creativity with BART Lines, BART is underlining our belief that the words, ideas, and foresight of youth matter. Like public transportation, poetry has the power to take you places, and the winning BART Lines poems are a case in point.
In addition to their work being published on the Short Edition website and in our dispensers and discs, the winners received a $75 honorarium. Their works will also be collected in a chapbook – stay tuned for more information.
Winners will also be invited to read their poems at special events, including the upcoming Bay Area Book Festival on June 2 in Downtown Berkeley, and their work will be featured in our stations and trains and on social media (among other venues).
Keep up to date with events and future contests at bart.gov/bartlines and by following BART’s social media channels.
Judges+Partners
826 Valencia is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting under-resourced students ages six to eighteen with their creative and expository writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Our services are structured around the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with individualized attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.
Youth Speaks is a leading presenter of Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development programs that was founded in San Francisco in 1996. Trailblazers of local and national youth poetry slams, festivals, and more, Youth Speaks offers a comprehensive slate of literary arts education programs and provides numerous opportunities for youth to be published and heard.