Happy Poetry Month, social workers! This year, 2026, marks the 30th anniversary of the National Poetry Month celebration. According to the Academy of American Poets, “National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters.”
This year, 138 poems from around the United States were submitted to the National Poetry Contest for Social Workers. We are pleased to publish the top three poems, selected by a panel of judges.
Want to submit for the 2027 contest? Website submissions will open on November 1, 2026 through January 31, 2027. Rules can be found at: National Poetry Contest for Social Workers | School of Social Work - College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | The University of Iowa.
Mercedes Bern-Klug, PhD, MSW, University of Iowa School of Social Work, Iowa City, Iowa (UNESCO City of Literature), Founder, National Poetry Contest for Social Workers
Linda May Grobman, MSW, ACSW, LSW, Founder/Publisher/Editor of The New Social Worker, Co-Sponsor, National Poetry Contest for Social Workers
First Place: Not a Professional
by Bitalina Arroyo, LCSW
They say I am not a professional, not for loan forgiveness, anyway.
Tell that to the mother at 2 AM, hands shaking, kids asleep in plastic chairs. Tell that to 287 pages memorized for the LCSW while working full time because rent does not wait.
Not a professional
But I hold a license, log supervision hours like a pilot, because one missed sign and someone’s life unravels. I sit with the chronically ill who have lost everything, the cutting teenager, the hungry children, the forgetting elder who remembers only fear.
I write safety plans at kitchen tables, call hospitals at midnight, testify for traumatized kids. I know every shelter bed, every local pantry, how to say “you’re okay” like I meant it when the system fails us both.
Not a professional. But I carry my client’s home, their stories in my chest, wondering if they are safe, if they ate, if today they believed they deserved better. My $70K degree taught me to hold space, de-escalate crisis, see the human behind the case number.
So, reclassify me in your databases. But when the world burns and someone needs help, they will call me. And I will answer. Because this is not what I do, It’s who I am.
Bitalina Arroyo, LCSW-NY/NJ, 2001 MSW graduate of Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, medical social worker, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY
Second Place: Presaging
by Abraham Tetteh Teye
I ask the alphabetical construction of her human dignity.
She traces the grain of my desk.
Looking back at a love that was only air, a mistress at sixteen.
She was heavy with the fame and cash promises of a devil.
A devil who wore a pleasing personality like a mask.
Outside, the air is thick with a family's disappointment.
Parents who have already turned home into a hell.
But here, in the quiet tick of our fifty‑minute hour.
I refuse the stones of stigma and the sharp edge of judgment.
I see the catastrophe written in the slump of her shoulders.
The virility that broke her, the belly that stole her youth.
I offer a different construction: a chair, a breath, a witness.
We sit in the presaging shadows of a chapter closing,
Holding the ink before it dries on a life not yet lost.
I am the keeper of her silence, until she finds her voice.
Abraham Tetteh Teye, University of Kentucky, College of Social Work, PhD student
Third Place: The Kid in The Green Shirt
by Alicia Autajay
A human can hurt, and a human can heal
He sat in the chair, clutching the orange cat Pillow Pet.
“They got my dad last night,” he said.
The masked men.
I nodded. He cried missing algebra class again.
Referrals to the therapist, the food pantry, the homework club.
Bandages for the systemic injustice impacting both of us…
A quick snack. A coloring break.
“Time to get back to class and learn PEMDAS.”
Deep breaths, grief acknowledged in between.
Document. Care team.
Bring a dish for the staff potluck.
Pull it together, practice self-care, while staying authentic.
I will not forget the kid in the green shirt.
Another day at school as a Latina social worker.
Alicia Autajay, Portland State University, MSW student, Completing a social work internship with Hillsboro School District Mental Health Coordinator Team
Judges for the 2026 contest:
- Harmony Linden has been a social worker since 2012. She has worked as a clinician in inpatient and outpatient settings and is now a clinical assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Social Work.
- Dana Kozisek, PhD, LISW, assistant professor of practice at the University of Iowa School of Social Work.
- Peggy Sharr, MSW, social worker, therapist, and author of the just published book, Surviving the Family Kingdom: A Memoir of Growing up in Mom's Cult, Escaping, and Reclaiming a Life (available on Amazon).
- Mercedes Bern-Klug, MSW, PhD, professor, University of Iowa School of Social Work.
Note: Special thanks to Mike Cranston for handling the web submission database.