The Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Program runs an annual event to encourage youth worldwide to utilize various forms of art to make the connection between human activities and the condition of today’s oceans. The 2023 Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest revolved around “Climate Heroes in Action” and asked students to focus their submissions on the heroes who make everyday efforts to better the world’s climate in creative ways. Students can submit their work in various forms, including Visual Art: Handcrafted, Visual Art: Digital, Poetry & Spoken Word, Creative Writing, Film, and more. Among the winners in the Poetry & Spoken Word division was Soeun Lee (’27), who received the Notable Submission Award.
Students from age 11 to 14 are placed in the Junior Division whereas students from age 15 to 18 are placed in the Senior Division. Cash awards are available, and there are many different levels of distinctions available, such as the Pearl Award, Ocean Soul Award, Gold Award, and many more. Only 13 Notable Submission Awards in the Junior Division were awarded, and one of the recipients was Lee, awarded for her poem titled “My Neighbor’s Doomsday Clock.”
Lee chose her neighbor as her climate hero in this piece. Her neighbor would help Lee through the recycling process, and Lee stated that her neighbor shaped her to “care for our Earth more than anything else.” Moreover, she had a clear motivation to write this very specific piece. “I wanted to convey to the readers that the true meaning of ‘escaping to paradise’ actually means to transform one’s surroundings into a paradise of their own making and advocate against climate change. Writing can address current happenings in the world and suggest solutions or open up discussions. I wanted to shed light on that part of writing too,” Lee said.
As for her writing journey, Lee began writing and exploring various forms of writing at the age of eight. “Branching out from that short book that I wrote in third grade, I now have multiple WIP novels and finished novels on my Google Drive,” Lee said. Furthermore, Lee believes that “every word is a color, and you have to choose your colors wisely to make a big masterpiece. Writing is both an art and a science, it requires all aspects to fully digest a sense where the readers can actually feel the words in front of them.” While her favorite genres to write are novels, poetry, and fiction, she continues to explore and experiment with different types of writing.
The Bow Seat Ocean Awareness truly allowed Lee’s voice to shine. The 2024 contest is open for submissions until June. If one is interested in considering writing outside of school, it would be important to remember to mark Lee’s advice: “The key is to persist and don’t give up on writing.”
