Anjali Lloyd is a second-grade student from Hidden Oak Elementary School. Lloyd is also a first-place winner in the Peace Poetry Contest, put on by the Veterans for Peace.
“I wish for a world with no hate,” reads Lloyd’s poem submission. “A world where people do not use their differences as bait.”
Lloyd is one of 32 young poetry winners who will read their poems about peace to an audience of roughly 150 people this weekend at the Peace Poetry Reading and Reception event.
The seventh-annual reading will take place May 14 from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville, located at 4225 NW
34th St. At the event, three high school seniors and college students who advocate for nonviolent social change will receive $500 scholarships.
“[The competition gets] young students starting to talk about peace so that when they get older and enter positions of power, they can have peace in mind when making decisions,” said Jessica Newman, a Peace Poetry Contest co-coordinator.
K-12 students submitted poetry that was critiqued for style, imagery and content by a panel of UF English graduate students, led by Sidney Wade, a UF English professor and a former president of the Association of Writers and Writing Program.
“We analyze the poetry the same way we would analyze any poem,” Wade said.
The top three students and high honors selections from each age group will read their poems. They will also receive a bookstore gift card, a certificate of achievement and placement in the 2016 Peace Poetry Book, which is available for free at the event, at public school libraries, at bookstores and online.
Scott Camil, the president of Veterans for Peace and a Vietnam War veteran, got the idea for the contest from Boston’s Veterans for Peace group’s own Peace Poetry Competition.
“In order to announce our contest, [the teachers] have to talk about peace,” Camil said. “It’s good for parents and kids to talk about peace while writing their papers. It’s not like a piece of cake. We all really enjoy hearing the poems.”
