The Great Writers Challenge started in 2021 when YWP writer Nightheart, then 16, wanted to introduce Young Writers Project to the incredible poets she was discovering. We're continuing the tradition by featuring poets and authors from around the world, sharing their styles, themes, and contributions to the literary landscape. If you're inspired by these challenges, please respond with your own writing.
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Cornelius Eady tells the truth about the world through poetry, says New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who asked the poet to write and read a poem for his inauguration. Eady's recent poetry also includes a tribute to Renee Nicole Good.
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Toni Morrison was the first Black woman to be awarded the Nobel laureate in literature. Her unvarnished exploration of Black identity in America brought her worldwide acclaim. Have you read her work?
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Clear, evocative, simply beautiful – words that describe this poet's work.
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Get swept away by the haunting poetry of Ocean Vuong, an award-winning young Vietnamese-American poet, essayist, and novelist.
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The words of writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin are as relevant to America today as they were during his lifetime.
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"Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things," writes poet Naomi Shihab Nye.
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An avant-garde poet who experimented with language in daring new ways.
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If you haven't read George Orwell yet, now would be a good time.
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This pioneering conservationist is considered one of the finest and most influential writers of the environmental movement.
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"Poetry is a necessity of life," this prolific American poet said. "It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so."
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Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, draws on her ancestors' experience in her award-winning poetry. She was the 23rd United States Poet Laureate (2019-22).
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This Chilean poet, diplomat, senator began publishing under a pen name because his father discouraged him from writing poetry. Neruda went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.