We’re excited to announce the selected poets for our United Nations World Oceans Day in 2026!

In 2026, we are inspired by the United Nations World Oceans Day theme of Reimagine: Beyond the world we know, a new relationship with our ocean

For too long, we have treated the ocean as something vast, distant, and separate from us. We created that distance ourselves. The ocean has always flowed through us, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the climate that makes our lives possible. Now we are being called to reimagine that relationship.

'Reimagine' asks us to close that distance together. To move from passive inheritors of the ocean’s generosity to active guardians of its future. To govern not just beyond our borders but beyond our blind spots, beyond the habits of taking, operating in silos, and the belief that the way things have been is the way they must remain.

Congratulations to this year’s featured poets!

Reclamation, a misnomer (The price we pay) by Erika Rosales, Philippines

Aig deireadh ar saoghail (At Our World’s End) by Fionnlagh Rothach O hIcidhe (Findlay Hickey), Scotland

We Are One by Gabrielle Sereia, United States

Unseparating by Ilona Mayerau-Lonne Guesdon, New Caledonia

La inmersión by Kelsey Cohen, United States

ज़िंदा हूँ by Renu Jain, United States

a sunrise swim by Tracy Jones, United States