The natural world as seen through the eyes of its children is heartening, humbling, fresh, often life-affirming, and sometimes disturbing. Feel free to download poems for your own enjoyment or for educational use. For commercial use of this copyrighted material, please contact us about reproduction rights. All licensing fees go to support River of Words´ educator training programs, our annual contest, and our curriculum materials.

Poetry submissions are judged by River of Words co-founders Robert Hass, who served as US Poet Laureate from 1995-1997, and writer Pamela Michael. American Sign Language poetry submissions are judged by renowned ASL poet Ella Mae Lentz and Susan Rutherford, Executive Director of DEAF Media. Four Grand Prizes in poetry are awarded every year to United States contestants, in four different age categories. In addition, about 50 finalists are selected each year from the tens of thousands of entries we receive from the US and other countries.