In this year’s spring workshop series, sponsored by the New York Life Foundation, the National Student Poets Program Class of 2025 will lead teens in exploring grief, bereavement, and resilience through the medium of poetry. Each facilitator will discuss how themes of grief inform their own poetic practices, while simultaneously introducing techniques and methods that participants can integrate into new work, which can then be fine-tuned and potentially submitted for future New York Life Award consideration.
Please join the Alliance, our talented workshop facilitators, and fellow young writers from across the world in developing your poetic work.
Writing Through Grief with the 2025 National Student Poets
April 1, 2026, 7:00 PM ET—Register now!
April 8, 2026, 7:00 PM ET—Register now!
April 15, 2026, 7:00 PM ET—Register now!
April 22, 2026, 7:00 PM ET—Register now!
April 29, 2026, 7:00 PM ET—Register now!
This workshop series is free and open to all young people. Registration will be capped at 75 participants per workshop.
Art and writing work about grief and bereavement created by teens in grades 7–12, ages 13 and up, may be eligible for a $2,500 scholarship through the New York Life Award, sponsored by the New York Life Foundation.
The National Student Poets Program is nation’s highest honor for young poets (grades 10–11) creating original work. Annually, the Alliance selects five teens to serve as youth poetry ambassadors, each representing a different geographic region of the country. The Program believes in the power of youth voices to create and sustain meaningful change and supports them in being heard.
About the 2025 National Student Poets
Sophie Da Silva is a Houston-based poet of Mexican and French Portuguese descent. Through her work, she hopes to explore her multicultural background as well as the experiences that make one human. Sophie is driven by a desire to create space for others and tell stories with her authentic voice. She has been recognized by YoungArts as a winner with distinction in poetry, Girls Write Now, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. When she is not writing, Sophie loves drinking matcha, acquiring Japanese stationery, and going on runs with her team.
Rishi Janakiraman is a junior from Raleigh, North Carolina, attending Stanford Online High School. He is a seven-time Scholastic Awards Gold Medalist and has received more than twenty Scholastic Awards over the past two years. Rishi also currently serves as NC’s Youth Poet Laureate and has been recognized by The Poetry Society, Bow Seat, and BBC Extra. A Top 15 Foyle Young Poet, his work has been published in The New York Times, Poetry Daily’s News column, and Rust + Moth. Being both a critic and creative writer, much of his work is intertextual, and he’s very interested in contemporary poetry that interrogates and upturns the literary tradition. He’s almost always writing an “after” poem, whether that’s reimagining The Odyssey or writing in response to one of his favorite poets (Diane Seuss, Anne Carson, and Terrance Hayes, among many others). Outside of writing, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Polyphony Lit and is always hunting for a new ramen place.
Demarion Martin is a poet, columnist, and advocate for Black voices. Born and raised in New Castle, Pennsylvania, he has dedicated himself to the power of words, using poetry as a means of storytelling, resistance, and truth. His work explores themes of race, memory, survival, and the nuances of the reality of Black identity in America. He is a decorated writer, having received multiple accolades for his poetry, including two Gold Keys from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a Gold Medal, and a Silver Medal from the NAACP’s ACT-SO program, among other honors. Beyond poetry, Demarion is committed to fostering spaces for Black students to thrive. He is the co-founder and co-president of his high school’s Black Student Union, where he works to usher in change and build community. He also enjoys writing for the school’s newspaper, The SIREN, as an editor. He writes a monthly column, “Dealing with Diversity,” where he talks about his culture through a personal lens.
Nadyne Sattar is a senior at Mounds View High School in Minnesota. Born in Montréal to Bangladeshi parents, she grew up in many places around the U.S.–Canada border. Poetry is a great love of her life (and a superpower), and she champions her passion so that others may find that same joy and catharsis in it. Additionally, as a social advocate as well as a writer, she endeavors to use her voice to create meaningful change in her communities and the world around her. She is an Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship alumna, a two-time YoungArts Award recipient, and a three-time Scholastic Awards National Medalist, including a medal for the American Voices Award. Her work is published in the Minnesota English Journal, Blue Marble Review, Cathartic Lit, and elsewhere. When not writing or advocating, she can be found with a camera, telescope, or Brontë novel in hand, or holed up with a cappuccino in a Minneapolis café.
Cordelia Scoville is a rising senior at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California, where she serves as co-president of the school’s Honors English club. She is a Scholastic Awards National Medalist and a two-time winner of Polyphony Lit’s Hispanic Heritage Month Award. Her work has been recognized by the American High School Poetry Contest, DePaul’s Bluebook: Best American High School Writing, the Writopia Lab Youth Essay Conference, and the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. Her short stories and poems are published in Polyphony Lit and Crashtest. Cordelia seeks to make literature accessible and meaningful to a wider audience and is especially motivated by her interest in different educational systems and theories. In addition to writing, she is fascinated by economics and world history. She is interested in how literature reflects cultural and social realities and relies on her relationship to literature to ground and guide her interdisciplinary studies.
Image credit: Emily Boon, Why Can’t Granny Remember?, Painting. Grade 10, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. JiaSheng Lin, Educator. School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Affiliate. Silver Medal, 2021.