{"id":22528,"date":"2025-06-02T12:50:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T16:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/2025\/06\/02\/hundreds-of-area-students-contribute-to-peace-poetry-contest-reading\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:32:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:32:50","slug":"hundreds-of-area-students-contribute-to-peace-poetry-contest-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/06\/02\/hundreds-of-area-students-contribute-to-peace-poetry-contest-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Area Students Contribute to Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Haverhill, MA (May 20, 2025) \u2014 More than 800 people, many of them K-12 students, submitted works to this year&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/student-life\/civic-engagement\/peace-poetry-contest\/\">Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading<\/a> at Northern Essex Community College.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_29227\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/05\/Peace-Poetry-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29227\" class=\" wp-image-29227\" src=\"http:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2026\/02\/Peace-Poetry-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"533\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-29227\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fifth grader Mackenzie Tobin reads her poem<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This is the 17th year for the contest, which solicits works of poetry and artwork from students and individuals affiliated with local schools. A committee of Northern Essex faculty and staff selected winners in each age group and invited those winners to a reading at NECC on May 20. Dozens of young authors shared their works on what peace means to them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We believe that children cannot learn to speak the language of possibility, or envision a culture of peace, if they do not have the opportunity to identify such moments and values within themselves, and their relationships,&#8221; says Elle Yarborough, professor of English at Northern Essex and coordinator of the Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading. &#8220;Through this contest, we seek to help students find a way to embrace the concept of peace and to disavow violence and bullying in all forms.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>About 225 of the submissions were published in a bound book, which was distributed to each of the poems\u2019 authors at the event.<\/p>\n<p>The Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading is a program offered under the <a href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/academics\/beyond-the-classroom\/service-learning\/service-learning-courses\/\">Service Learning<\/a> umbrella at NECC. This contest is sponsored by the Division of Liberal Arts, the English Department, and Service Learning Committee. Learn more by visiting the Peace Poetry <a href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/student-life\/civic-engagement\/peace-poetry-contest\/\">webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Haverhill, MA (May 20, 2025) \u2014 More than 800 people, many of them K-12 students, submitted works to this year&#8217;s Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading at Northern Essex Community College. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":22529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[496,166],"class_list":["post-22528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students","tag-peace-poetry-contest","tag-community"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hundreds of Area Students Contribute to Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading - NECC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/06\/02\/hundreds-of-area-students-contribute-to-peace-poetry-contest-reading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hundreds of Area Students Contribute to Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading - NECC News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Haverhill, MA (May 20, 2025) \u2014 More than 800 people, many of them K-12 students, submitted works to this year&#8217;s Peace Poetry Contest &amp; Reading at Northern Essex Community College. 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