From Across the Room

Love is officially in the air, and we can’t help but get caught up in the heart-shaped chocolates and rom-com-worthy daydreams. That’s why we’re calling on our poets to describe a time when simply looking at another person took their breath away. Whether it was your first crush (we’ve been there) or a fictional character (we’ve definitely been there), we want to hear you describe your  “…and that's when I saw you" moment.

To celebrate the season of falling head over heels in love, we’re challenging you to write a poem about the knee-buckling moment when you caught someone's eye from across the room. Tell us about the blood rushing to your cheeks and the butterflies fluttering in your stomach. We can’t wait to fall in love with your poems!

Judge

Kirun Kapur - Kirun grew up in Hawaii and has since lived and worked in North America and South Asia. Her first job as a writer was for India’s groundbreaking feminist magazine Manushi and from there, her travels took her through Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals and news outlets. She has taught creative writing at Boston University, Brandeis University, and has been granted fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Vermont Studio Center and MacDowell Colony. Additional honors include the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize in Poetry, a Best of the Net award, the Nazim Hikmet Prize, and the Glenna Luschei award. In 2015, NBCNews named her to their list of Asian-American Poets to Watch. Kirun's latest book, "Women in the Waiting Room," was a finalist for the National Poetry Series.

Kirun serves as the editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal, one of the nation’s oldest poetry publications, and teaches at Amherst College where she is the director of the Creative Writing Program. She lives north of Boston with her family. To learn more, visit her at kirunkapur.com.

For your story to be eligible, it should be between 100 and 2,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until March 15, 2022, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The From Across the Room Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.