Meet Marcus Burns, the 2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate
Runners-up include Mariam Abena Diallo of Brattleboro, VT and Evvi Tower-Pierce of East Burke, VT
2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate Marcus Burns
Winner Marcus Burns, St. Johnsbury
Marcus grew up exploring the woods around his home in Lyme, New Hampshire, and fell in love with the work of Robert Frost in middle school at Crossroads Academy. He soon began writing his own poetry centered around themes such as our connection with nature, his mixed Vietnamese American identity, and daily life in Vermont and New Hampshire.
“Marcus Burns’s poems move quickly, carrying the reader into sensory adventures—through an Asian market, up into the sky overhead, down into paper bags of treasured flour, into ancestral gardens, along riverbanks both verdant and dry, and down beneath roots inside the earth,” contest judge Meg Buchanan said. “His work reminds me of the surprising intensity of a summer garden after rain: welcoming, lush and vivid.”
Marcus was named 2024 National Student Poet of the Northeast Region by Scholastic, Inc., in collaboration with the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences and was a state finalist in Poetry Out Loud. His other hobbies include playing guitar with his band Mothwoman, carpentry and woodcarving, drawing, creating constructed languages, and beatboxing. In the fall, he will be attending Brown University, where he hopes to study linguistics.
2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate Runner-Up Evvi Tower-Pierce
Runner-up Evvi Tower-Pierce, East Burke
Runner-up Evvi Tower-Pierce of East Burke is a Vermont author, poet, artist, and endurance athlete. On top of being named a runner-up for the 2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate contest, Evvi was a finalist for the 2025 contest as well as the winner of the 2024 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate Illustration contest. Her writing and artwork have been recognized through numerous other awards, including multiple honors from the Young Writers Project. She is also the author of the poetry collection Daughters of Demons.
"Being part of the Vermont Youth Poet Laureate program has meant a lot to me,” Evvi says. “Poetry has given me a way to connect with others, tell stories, and better understand my own experiences. I'm honored to have been selected as a runner-up this year and grateful to be recognized alongside so many talented young writers."
Outside of writing and art, Evvi has competed internationally in skyrunning, an extreme sport where participants run steep, vertical mountains. For three years she represented Canada's national team before joining Team USA.
Runner-up Mariam Abena Diallo, Brattleboro
On top of being a runner-up for the 2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate contest, Mariam Abena Diallo of Brattleboro was a Poetry Out Loud finalist as well as a finalist for Bennington College’s 2026 Young Writer's Award. She has also received the 2025 Arion Award, a National award for excellence in chorus; the 2025 St. Michael's College Book Award for Community Engagement; and the Brattleboro Union High School Excellence in English Award in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
“Marcus and runners-up Mariam Abena Diallo and Evvi Tower-Pierce honor the intricacies of human identity with resonance and resilience,” contest judge Rick Agran says. “With musical and lyrical language—and inventive forms—all of the finalists submitted problem-posing/problem-solving poems that seek to take the world to task for its complexity.”
The Vermont Youth Poet Laureate contest is a program of Sundog Poetry in partnership with Urban Word and in collaboration with the Flynn Center, Ruth Stone House, and the Young Writers Project. This national program celebrates the nation’s top youth poets, who are committed to artistic excellence, civic engagement, and social impact. State Youth Poets Laureate participate in dozens of national gatherings, workshops, and performances each year. Currently, the program serves more than seventy cities and has been featured in every major news outlet in the country.
“It was a true honor to read new work from so many talented young Vermont poets,” Meg Buchanan adds. “To everyone who submitted work: thank you for your honesty, your effort, and the love that you poured into the poems. Language saves us and connects us. Please keep writing and sharing your art. The world needs it.”