Speak Truth to Power about Global Warming
It’s hard to think about global warming when so many other issues affect our everyday lives. What we want to know is: Do you think about global warming? And if you do, what do you think? And if you don’t, what’s in the way?

For the second year, Youth Speaks has partnered with the Sundance Summit: A Mayors’ Gathering on Climate Protection to host a spoken word competition on global warming.

The Global Warming Poetry Competition
On July 21, 2007 in San Jose, California, ten youth poets, the finalists selected from dozens of contest submissions, took the stage to perform their work as part of Youth Speaks’ Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Festival. A panel of four judges selected our youth poet winners. Each youth poet winner received $500 in prize money and will be flown to Sundance, Utah on September 9th to perform their work for 60 U.S. mayors attending the 2007 Sundance Summit.

About The Competition
Poets between the ages of 13-25 were asked to submit up to three pieces of original work (each piece to be a maximum of 3:30 minutes long when performed) along with a cover sheet that included the poet’s name, age, place of birth, current city of residence, contact information, and title(s) of poem(s).

On July 8, 2007, 10 poets were notified that they had been selected to compete during the special Speak Truth to Power about Global Warming session at the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival in San Jose, California.

On July 21, 2007 three winners were chosen by a panel of celebrated poets who judged the competition. The competition was filmed and up to 5 entries may be included in a Global Warming Poetry collection produced and distributed to the mayors attending the Sundance Summit as well as to hundreds of others mayors engaged in a worldwide movement to end global warming. All three winners received a prize of $500 and will be flown, all expenses paid, to Sundance, Utah to perform their work at the 2007 Sundance Summit, September 9-12, 2007 and will be invited to participate in the event, and possibly travel to a handful of other U.S. cities as part of the Sundance Summit art exhibition and tour.

2006 Youth Speaks, Climate Change Contest Winner (.pdf)