by Eva van Loon

On a Maui beach in 1996, poets and believers in peace launched the International Peace Poem by writing lines of peace poetry on a scroll. Since then, people from everywhere added their two lines’ worth, either online, by mail, or in person, in Englese, English, or any language in which the spirit of peace moved them. The original scroll, now over 90,000 lines long, is as big as the biggest truck tire. More than 440 schools throughout Hawai’i and North America participate in the annual Youth Peace-Poem Competition, during spring’s “Season of Peace and Non-Violence”. The website is visited around the world, and the poem itself has traveled to the United Nations.

In Powell River, the International Peace-Poem Walkers formed a society dedicated to “peace and poetry at a human pace” by walking the Poem from one community to the next. The group now hosts the Youth Peace-Poem Competition. The next activity is a Peace Walk for Earth Day celebrations on April 24 at Willingdon Beach, and the planting of a peace tree.

Powell River’s Live Poets’ Guild, who create the annual kids’ peace–poem anthology, provides a creative, supportive, non-competitive and investigative climate for anyone who feels the poetic spirit. The years have proven that poetry lives in everyone. Poetry, like its twin, music, was born in orality and has the power to bridge gaps between generations and groups in society. It stands as a gateway to literacy for all peoples.

The annual competition invites youth to use language in poetic ways to enhance quality of life and to promote peace. A new feature in this third year of the Competition is the joinder of poetry with music and visual art. One of Canada’s best known folksingers and songwriters, BC’s own VALDY, came to Powell River to work with musically inclined entrants, turning some poems into full-fledged songs for the Awards Night concert. If you missed this magical occasion, look for Tony Papa’s DVD in the near future.

A dozen visual poems were also submitted this year, garnering special prizes. Tia Rosypski’s evocative first-place design graces the cover of the anthology, called The Locked Box after the title of Justin Campbell’s top winning poem.


IPPWA joined School District 47, Assumption School, Ecole Coté de Soleil, Live Poets’ Guild and the Writers’ Festival to promote youth literacy with this project. A grant from the Powell River Literacy Council was immensely helpful. 



About two dozen classes participated, plus individuals. Available online, the competition kit consists of sample lesson plans, sample poems, and information regarding the International Peace-Poem Project and its associated competitions. Lesson plans focus on poem structures and suggest quick methods of stimulating poetic thought and imagery. The only restriction on form is printability.     

  Judges met for several sessions to winnow the poems down to a first, second, and third-prize winner in each Class, then in each Grade, then in each Group, and finally overall for Grand Prize winners.

Quite a few students wrote less about peace than the absence of war. In spite of Powell River’s relative isolation, the state of the world evidently weighs on the young minds, particularly the teens. Although tackling the topic in this way tended to disqualify the poems from a “peace” prize, many won Honorable Mention, as they help us see how strongly the youngest generation favors peace and understanding over violence of any kind. Our youth have an excellent grasp of what constitutes the real “Good Life”.

Powell River students contributed almost 2,000 lines of poetry to the International Peace Poem this year. IPPWA hopes to expand the competition and peace walks throughout the Sunshine Coast and beyond.