FPS: Roots and Branches Challenge Winners
A behind-the-scenes glimpse at the Vocal Curation Team’s top picks from Roots and Branches.
Welcome to the final Challenge Winners Announcement of the year and thank you for being part of Vocal in 2025.
Before we begin, a quick note: the first set of challenges for next year are now live. We hope you’ll take a look, and stay tuned, there’s more ahead, including some major announcements coming to Vocal in 2026.
Now, to Roots and Branches.
This challenge asked poets to consider what grounds them and what carries them forward. What emerged wasn't a single answer, but a tension between staying and reaching, and that's gave many of these poems their shape.
These are the pieces that stayed with us.
🏆 Winners
Monk(ey) Mind by Marilyn Glover
Marilyn Glover's Monk(ey) Mind uses repetition and wordplay to slow a restless mind and return it to center. Grounded in breath and self-compassion, the poem shows how steady practice becomes a way forward.
Nerve Endings by Edward Swafford
Edward Swafford's piece stood out for its intensity and commitment. The language is heavy and deliberate, pushing against familiar ideas of lineage and refusing to soften the experience.
wander-root by Gina C.
Gina C. traces ancestry through roots, rhizomes, and wandering branches, reaching toward a past shaped by absence and uncertainty. The image of “tumble-weed meander” lingers, capturing the poem’s sense of motion, absence, and search for connection.
Foresee (4C) by AfroVerse
Foresee (4C) by AfroVerse explores Black hair as inheritance, resistance, and identity. With clear structure and vivid detail, this remarkable poem honors what is carried on the body while refusing the voices that seek to diminish it.
Here I Stand by A. J. Schoenfeld
A. J. Schoenfeld's Here I Stand honors the women whose care and guidance made growth possible. Its steady focus on ascent and legacy gives the piece a quiet, lasting weight.
🎖️ Runners-up
- the day, back again by Mackenzie Davis
- Skulls under the growth by Sam Spinelli
- Arsenal Oak by Harper Lewis
- Midlife by Hannah Moore
- my story hides by John Cox
- Living Words by Pixel Floyd
- Where Lies my Baby Teeth by Antoni De'Leon
- A Second Hibiscus by Stephen A. Roddewig
- Casting for Answers by Paris Rosemont
- Turned Tree by D. J. Reddall
- The Last of the First by Dana Crandell
- Sway by Aspen Marie
- Red Dirt Roots by Novel Allen
- where I come from by Raistlin Allen
- Dreams of the Acorn-Child by John R. Godwin
🏅 Honorable Mentions
- I Landed Here by Natalie Wilkinson
- Growth by Jessica McGlaughlin
- Growing Into It by Alison McBain
- In Spite of Who I’ve Been by Aubrey Rebecca
- Two Trees by Ian Vince
- Toppling the Family Tree by K.B. Silver
- Young Blood by Camille Ora-Nicole
- The Tree That Silently Watched by Stacey Mataxis Whitlow (SMW)
- Bifurcated Divides by Corvus
- Uprooted, Tumbled, but Hopeful by Lana V Lynx
Check out the latest on Vocal Challenges.
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FPS: Villanelle of Regret Challenge Winners
Some feelings don’t fade. They repeat. The Villanelle of Regret challenged poets to write into that return. To let regret, longing, and obsession build with each pass, rather than resolve. The strongest entries trusted repetition to carry the weight.
By Vocal Curation Team27 days ago in Resources
Comments (28)
Congratulations, winners and contributors. These challenges are always inspiring.
Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉
Congratulations everyone 🦋😊🦋🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Congratulations to all the winners, runners-up, and honorable mentions!
Thank you so much for the opportunity to contribute to this and other challenges - but particularly this one, where I learnt so much in an area I don't write with confidence. Congratulations to everyone who won.
Congratulations, everyone, and many thanks, Vocal! My poem was not only highly personal, but it was also meant to help others tame the monkey mind. If I haven't read your entry already, I most definitely will.❤ I am still catching up on the Villanelle winners from last week.
I love how the winners explore both roots and branches grounding and reaching showing the tension between where we come from and where we’re going.
Congrats to everyone, the winners and participants. 🥳 🥳
Congratulations to everyone! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Thank you so much, Vocal! 🥹💙 And a huge congrats to everyone on the list! 🫶
Congrats 👏🎉🎉
Good work! Congratulations everyone!
Congratulations Everyone 🎊 🤩
I'm so proud of everyone
Congratulations to everyone!
Bravo to all the winners!!!
Congratulations everyone 🎉🎉
Such great stories!! Congrats to all!!
Congratulations everyone 👏 💜
Congratulations All! 🥳🎉🎉🎉
I am speechless. Thank you so much for recognizing my work! This means the world to me. I look forward to reading all the other Winners, Runner-ups, and Honorable Mentions. There are some powerhouse names on this list and I'm honored to just have my work included with theirs. Just really, really blown away. Thank you!
Thank you, Vocal and congratulations, everyone!
Congratulations! May you roots hold you firmly while your imagination soars!
Congratulations to all of the winners, placers, showers, good sports, overlooked geniuses, and maybe next timers. I enjoyed all of the diverse perspectives. This one didn’t show, but it’s brilliant: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/the-heroin-tree%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv class="css-w4qknv-Replies">
Congratulations to all!