BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest 2024

BART Lines teen poetry contest banner with blue background and girl riding train

 

Submissions are open - Click HERE to Submit

 

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).  


 

“The 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? 

Why Host a Poetry Contest?

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. We are listening and learning from you!  

BART is organizing programs such as BART Lines, which is facilitated by BART Communications and the BART Art Program, 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 people’s 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.  

Finalists+Prizes

Selected finalist poems will be announced on or about April 12, 2024. Finalists will be notified by email. 

The 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 (Amazon gift card), and their poem will be published in BART’s  Short Édition Story Dispensers and BART’s 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).  

All genres are accepted, as long as they align broadly to a poetry format. BART’s editorial team will confer with the jurors regarding any questions or concerns regarding format.

Contest Timeline

The contest opens for submissions on Friday, February 9, at 12 a.m.

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

All entries will be made through Submittable. Authors will be required to create an account to access the submission page. 

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.

Authors may submit only one poem, including if they are co-author.

To comply with online privacy requirements and those of the Submittable platform, authors under the age of 18 must submit an acknowledgement of their application that is signed by a parent or legal guardian.  All applicants under age 18 (as of 1/19/2024) must get parent/legal guardian approval of their application. You may have them complete the form in the Submittable application, or you may download the form below, and get their signature and upload the form with your Submittable application.

The deadline to submit an entry is Friday, March 8, at 11:59 p.m. 

Please note that BART will only accept 300 submissions, and when we reach that number, the submission period will close. 

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 Story Dispensers

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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A woman uses a short story dispenser

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 be installing Story Discs at the following stations: 

  • Daly City 
  • Dublin/Pleasanton 
  • Embarcadero 

 

BART Lines: Teen Poetry Contest Rules

BART’s Privacy Policy 

BART Line's Parent-Guardian Release