It’s time to shine with Perfect Rhymes*!

If you’re a teen poet, this is your chance to be published in Teen Ink magazine and win a $25 Amazon gift card.

In just 50 words or less, create your best Perfect Rhymes* and submit them to Teen Ink! Winners and top nominees will be published in Teen Ink magazine. 

*Perfect Rhymes are rhymes in which different consonants are followed by an identical vowel and consonant sounds, such as in “tune” and “soon”

Deadline: June 30th, 2022

Guidelines: 

• Submissions should relate to the topic (“It’s Time to Rhyme!”)

• Teen Ink will only consider entries by teens

• No inappropriate content

• There is no limit to the number of pieces you can submit!

• Be creative; test your limits; use your fantastic skills!

• Submission must be 50 words maximum, 30 words minimum

• Poems must be of the “perfect rhyme” style
  
  

Submissions:

• Submit entries through our website. All entries submitted to Teen Ink are automatically considered for the contest. See our submission guidelines for more information.

• To make sure your submissions are included in the contest, include "June 2022 Poetry Contest" in the first part of your submission’s title
  (e.g., 2022 June Poetry Contest: The Flower in the Field).

• Submissions must follow the “perfect rhyme” style

• Submissions must fit into the word count of 30-50 words
  
  

Prizes:

• Winner and top nominees will be published in Teen Ink magazine!

• Winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card!

A Plea

by Grace Haller, Vero Beach, FL

The warm, golden sun kissing my cheeks
The sky full of milky, sapphire streaks
Scorching, brown sugar sand burning
my feet
Salty, coconut air smelling kind of sweet

Icy cool waters pierce my skin
My sister yelling to "just jump in"
Baby bubbles ticking my face
Like a different planet,
an underwater space

A parade of tropical multi-color fish
To stay down here would be my only wish
Out of break but still so much to see
Lungs relived yet my heart still yearns
to explore the sea

But now something has happened drastic
My favorite place is throwing up plastic
I'm begging you to listen; I'm not being
sarcastic
Air that was like biting into an apple, 
so crisp

Is now oily and sizzling with toxins within
Voices that fought still linger in the breeze
As our entire planet dies from this disease
Trash bags dance atop the water
Ocean, will you stay alive to meet my
daughter?

The Power of Words

by Alexandra Scott, New Hope, PA

Our mouths tasted metallic
As we struggled to chew
the bolded italics

That lay scattered on this page:
An inescapable cage.

Our hands were clasped tightly
As we thought concisely

About this moment,
This atonement.

I thought of our past,
And realized that this was our final act.

A Summer's Warm Dream

by Haley S., Wheeling, IL

When birds flutter into trees
Honey dripping from hives of bees
I brush my fingertips against a stream
Noticing a magical summer’s
warm dream
And when the wind begins to fade
I sit beneath a tree’s cool shade
Feeling the sun’s comforting gleam
I lose myself to a warm summer’s dream.

Girl on the Roof

by Elise Gimpert, Peachtree City, GA

Girl on the roof,
Waiting for proof,

Of something greater,
That infamous creator.

A twinkle in the sky,
Some celestial reply —

She begs the night for a sign,
Sees ordinary, hopes for divine,

Asks the moon what’s taking
so long,

And unclasps cold hands,
wondering if she’s been praying wrong.

Torn Apart

by William Chen, Winfield, WV

a destructive gloom
displaying its plume
funneling across the land
playing its raucous band
narrow path of escape
the behind left to reshape
hope is a crushed grape
stormy sea in sky
in conquest all comply
howling rabid wind
distinguishes no friend.

paper burns/tears/folds too easy

by Robyn Davies, Webster Groves, MO

paper kids in our make-believe paper town:

still dreaming as our city burned down

we were made of i love you’s that weren’t
made to last;

our origami hearts left torn
all too fast

we folded our airplanes and parted
our ways,

turned the next page from our
melancholic days.