Retriever Essentials Call for Poetry
10 Years of Community Care: Share Your Voice and Win 100 Retriever Dollars
For a decade, Retriever Essentials has worked to ensure no Retriever goes hungry. What started as an effort to ease the immediate burden of food insecurity has grown into a campus movement of mutual aid, support, and care. Every meal provided, every pantry restocked, and every student served over the past ten years has been made possible by the dedication of our UMBC community.
As we mark our 10th Anniversary, we want to celebrate the heart of this work: student voices.
In partnership with Poetry X Hunger, we are calling on UMBC student writers and poets to submit an original poem exploring themes of hunger, food justice, or collective care.
The Award and Recognition
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100 Retriever Dollars: One featured student writer will be awarded 100 Retriever Dollars.
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Live Performance: The selected student will read their poem live in front of an audience at our 10th Anniversary Celebration.
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Broader Platform: Winning selections will be showcased on the Poetry X Hunger website to inspire broader audiences.
Your words have the power to illuminate the reality of food equity, foster empathy, and drive meaningful change.
How to Submit
You can use this submission form or follow the QR code in the image below. We look forward to reading your work and celebrating ten years of community support together.
Submission Requirements:
- Must be a UMBC student (Retriever Essentials staff members aren't eligible to submit poetry)
- Submission must be a Word Document
- The Word Document or Google Form submission cannot contain your name (For impartiality)
- Submission must be a poem that focuses on the topics of hunger, nutrition, collective care, food stamps, food pantries, community gardening, sustainability, food waste or other hunger related topics.
- The submitted poem should be no more than a page long.
- No AI-assisted writing or hateful language