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Submissions are open - Click HERE to Submit

Official contest page: bart.gov/bartlines

Deadline to Submit: Friday, March 8, 2024, at 11:59pm PST (or sooner - see below)

IMPORTANT: Only 300 qualifying submissions will be accepted for review. The submission period will close when 300 applications are received, which may be before the stated deadline. We indicate on this page when we have received approximately 225 applications. We will close the Submittable application page when 300 qualifying submissions have been received. 

Applicants must be between the ages of 13 to 19 as of Friday, March 8, 2024. 

Interested in promoting the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest at your school, library, or organization? Download this printable flyer (PDF).  

Friday, Jan. 19 - We are pleased to announce the 2024 BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest. This will be BART’s first writing contest for youth, following last year’s short story contest for adults. 

With the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest, BART is thrilled to lift and amplify the voices of Bay Area youth, whose perspectives, opinions, and ideas are providing us with a roadmap for the future – one that is informed by their lived experiences as well as the unique histories of their communities. We are listening and learning from you!  

By providing a forum for teens’ voices and creativity with BART Lines, we are underlining our belief that the words, ideas, and foresight of youth matter. One day soon, they will be the leaders and visionaries that decide the future of public transportation, and therefore, the future of our region.    

Pictured above: One of BART’s free story dispensers, where the winning poems will be uploaded. The dispensers are like vending machines for creative writing, dispensing stories on eco-friendly recyclable, receipt-like paper. They’re touchless; you just hover your finger over the button to get your story. 

BART Lines was created by BART Communications and BART’s Art Program. BART is organizing programs such as BART Lines to get people excited about transit and to emphasize the variety of ways you can use our system, as well as the places it can take you. By partnering with local organizations, including BART Lines partners and judges 826 Valencia and Youth Speaks, we are reinforcing the value arts and cultural organizations bring to BART and our community of riders. These partnerships also highlight the key role public transportation plays in connecting people to experiences that have the power to change and enrich their lives.  

BART’s new ridership model emphasizes weeknight and weekend travel, which reinforces the notion that we are not simply a commuter service that transports people to and from work. Our system also carries people to impactful encounters and locations, be it museums, theaters, libraries, public parks, and people, too.  

The BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest is one piece of BART’s robust rider engagement strategy that seeks to bring riders together through unique experiences in both virtual and IRL formats. Recent efforts include the BART Anime Project , the One Book One BART book club, Twitch livestreams, creative and informative TikTok content, shareable rider guides, and free celebratory events in stations and trains. 

When we ride transit, we hold space for one another. On a crowded train, we remove our backpacks and latch our bikes; we stand for someone who needs to sit; and we scooch to the window seat when space is sparse. Riding transit reminds us that we exist in an interconnected web of others – your fellow passengers, who carry with them their dreams, imaginings, and aspirations (along with their shopping bags and suitcases). BART Lines seeks to celebrates this.  

Pictured above: A BART Lines winner reads his poem at Glen Park Station. 

Theme: Bay is Home

The theme for the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest is “Bay is Home.” We want to read your poems related to the Bay Area. Your submission might describe a location – somewhere you take BART, for example – or maybe a specific spot that inspired your piece. With this theme, we’re asking: How do the many places, people, and aspects of the region make the Bay home? 

Submissions-Timeline-Prizes  

To submit an entry, authors must be between the ages of 13 to 19 as of Friday, March 8, 2024,  and reside in one of the five counties where BART operates: San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara.  

Submissions must not exceed 7,500 characters (including spaces). Each line longer than will fit on the dispenser print-outs, typically about 38-40 characters and spaces, will be divided as needed with a slash ("/"). Finalists may be required to edit their work to fit the dispenser format. BART will coordinate with you to finalize your work for publication.

To learn more, see the contest rules and submit your poem, click here. Authors may submit only one poem, including if they are co-author.

Thirty finalists will be selected by BART Lines partners 826 Valencia and Youth Speaks, two standout Bay Area organizations lifting the voices of teen poets. Each finalist will receive a $75 honorarium and their poem will be published in BART’s Short Édition Story Dispensers and Story Discs (scroll down for locations), as well as the BART Short Edition website. Select finalists will be invited to participate in a series of readings in and around BART stations (not a requirement for submitting a poem for consideration).   

Judges/Partners

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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. Founded in 1996 in San Francisco, Youth Speaks is a leading presenter of Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development programs. 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. 

About BART’s Short Édition Story Dispensers and Story Discs

Short Édition is a French publishing house of short literature: poetry, short stories, and flash fiction. In addition to its online platform, Short Édition publishes fiction around the world via its Short Story Dispensers and Story Discs (a digital version of the dispensers that allow you to access unlimited content for free on a smartphone) for the public to enjoy a serendipitous literary experience, free of charge.  

The dispensers are like vending machines for creative writing, dispensing stories on eco-friendly recyclable, receipt-like paper. They’re touchless; you just hover your finger over the button to get your story. 

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BART’s Story Dispensers are currently located at the following stations: 

• Balboa Park  
• Downtown Berkeley  
• Fruitvale 
• Pleasant Hill 
• San Leandro (pending installation) 

BART will soon install Story Discs at the following stations:  

• Daly City  
• Dublin/Pleasanton  
• Embarcadero 

About the Artist Behind the Contest Art 

Amy Wibowo is a public transit fan and a creative technologist whose art ranges from sweaters made on a hacked knitting machine to RFID jewelry. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Forbes, and Vox. She is also the author and illustrator of Bubblesort Zines, a zine series making computer science topics more accessible to a wider audience. Wibowo was chosen from a pool of artists selected from an open call for California-based artists for BART’s Anime Project.  

Quotes from Contest Organizers and Partners 

Alicia Trost, Chief Communications Officer at BART:

“BART Lines is another way for us to connect with current riders while also attracting new riders. Our adult short story contest helped increase ridership as people came to BART seeking out the story dispensers to read local content. It was thrilling to see people post about their experience on social media, noting they rode just to get a story. I’ll never forget the time our General Manager asked a crowd what their favorite thing about BART was, and someone shouted out: ‘The short story dispensers!’ We have no doubt the teen poetry contest will produce the same results.”   

Jennifer Easton, BART Art Program Manager:  

“The BART Art Program strives to bring the voices of artists into transit spaces in fresh and compelling ways to reflect our communities, to be in dialogue with our riders, to intrigue and compel. By engaging visual artists, writers, musicians and others in our transit spaces they become dynamic, humane, and more Bay Area. Youth poetry in the Bay is so strong right now, and we’re thrilled to bring a small bit of it to the story dispensers.” 

Michelle Robertson, BART Storyteller:  

“What do BART and poetry have in common? On BART, not only are we given space to read, write, doze, and dream, but we’re also given the gift of sharing space with other people and the stories they hold in their bodies and minds. BART is the ‘great connector of the Bay Area,’ and with BART Lines, we’re gratified to highlight the sometimes-unexpected connections our system enables, not solely in physical space, but also in transcendental space, where poetry lives and breathes.”  

Bita Nazarian, 826 Valencia Executive Director: 

"826 Valencia is thrilled to partner with BART to bring youth voices to transit stations across the Bay Area. Seeing one's writing in print can have a transformative impact on a young person's life, and we are excited to be a part of such a unique publishing project."  

Michelle Mush Lee, Youth Speaks Executive Director:  

“Youth Speaks is thrilled to partner with BART on this unique public art project celebrating youth voice and poetry. I see poetry as a universal journey, much like public transportation. Just as BART transports passengers across city lines and social jurisdictions, poetry transcends political and cultural barriers. In each line and verse, lies an invitation to journey beyond our immediate surroundings, to explore landscapes of emotion and thought. It is our vision at Youth Speaks to harness this power, creating a world where words are not just a means of expression, but a vehicle for transformative change, carrying Bay Area residents closer to ourselves and each other.”

Beginning Wednesday, April 3, you'll hear the voices of some of BART’s biggest fans playing over our PA system. For the second year in a row, BART is celebrating Autism Acceptance Month by participating in the Autism Transit Project, which invites youth on the autism spectrum to record station announcements for transportation agencies around the nation. Jonathan Trichter, who runs multiple schools for children with autism and other neurological differences, spearheads the project.  

The recordings will play at 35 BART stations across the system every hour for the remainder of April. You can find the list of stations and listen to the recordings at the bottom of this announcement.  

“My name is Antoine, and the reason I like BART is because it gets me to my destination without traffic,” is one example of an announcement you may hear.  

Other announcements remind riders of BART rules and courtesy measures, like Bella's: "I love BART because it’s fun looking out the windows. Please remember to keep our train clean and offer your seat to someone in need. Have a fantastic day."  

Some participants kept things simple and gleefully shouted out their favorite things about BART. Said Cameron: "I love BART because they run the next-gen [trains], although I do miss the old boys.” 

In just two years, the Autism Transit Project has become a beloved tradition at BART. It is widely documented that some people with autism have an affinity for trains. Though it’s not entirely known why that is, experts believe the allure could be related to the repetitive and predictable natures of trains, as well as the visually and auditorily stimulating rhythms and patterns they produce as they run along the tracks and pull into stations. 

“Children with autism don’t always come to language naturally, the way neurotypical children do,” said Trichter, who started the Autism Transit Project in 2022. “They grab phrases where they are most focused and may repeat them the same way other kids babble. It is not unusual for the first sentence a child with autism utters to be a regular service announcement at transit stations — something we take for granted every day. For these kids, it is the language they first use to communicate with their family and peers. That’s why this project is so very meaningful to them. I’d like to thank BART for letting these beautiful children be heard. “ 

To record their announcements, participants were invited to BART Headquarters, where the BART Communications team recorded their statements in a soundproof room with professional microphones and equipment. The children also did on-camera interviews after their recording sessions, which will be featured in an upcoming video.

When they weren’t recording, participants listened to presentations in the BART Boardroom from BART General Manager Bob Powers, Manager of Scheduling and Services John FitzGibbon, and Transportation Supervisor Casey Unger. They also rotated between different tables set up around the room, which were run by energetic BART staff. The stations included a table with tactile equipment from around the BART system, including a piece of rail; a dress-up station with real uniforms from a variety of BART jobs, such as train operators and station agents; a crafting table; and a capsule ball machine where participants won BART-themed prizes.  

We hope you enjoy the announcements. 

Announcements 

The child’s name and the stations where their announcement is playing are listed below. To listen, click on the blue hyperlink. 

Antoine – Fremont and Milpitas  

Bella – Castro Valley and Civic Center  

Brian – North Berkeley 

Calvin – Balboa Park 

Cameron B. – 19th St. Oakland and Pleasant Hill 

Cameron C. – Pittsburgh/Bay Point and West Oakland 

Curtis – South Hayward 

Damian – Fruitvale and MacArthur 

Eden – Lafayette and Walnut Creek 

Emmett – 24th St. Mission and Downtown Berkeley 

Isaias – Bay Fair and El Cerrito del Norte 

Joseph – Berryessa and Millbrae 

King – Lake Merritt 

Liam – Concord and Orinda 

Lucy – Glen Park and Montgomery St. 

Max – Coliseum and Powell St. 

Milo – 12th St. Oakland and SFO 

Nita – Rockridge and Union City 

Robert – Daly City and Embarcadero 

Serenity – San Leandro