By Jamin Oppong-Darko
12th grade | Chenango Forks High School | New York
Finalist, Climate and Environment category
With lines from “Great Expectations: Can Motherhood Help North Atlantic Right Whales Rise Again?” by Jenn Thornhill Verma, a Pulitzer Center reporting project
Beneath the bruise-blue waves, she sings—
a mother’s hymn, a thread of hope
stitched through the ocean’s throat.
"Fewer than 70 reproductively active females remaining"
the currents whisper, salt and sorrow.
Yet she carries, slow and sure,
a new life turning in the dark—
a lantern swaying in the abyss…
But the ocean is no longer a cradle.
It is a hallway of knives.
"Eight entanglements and four vessel strikes,"
she has endured, relentless.
She swims with her calf through a forest
of shadows, every knot a snare,
every propeller a toothsome jaw…
What does it mean to mother in an ending?
To nurse a flame in the wind?
"In the 35-year record, only 11 years have produced 20 or more calves"
the scientists say, but she—
she does not count. She fights.
Her song is not elegy.
It is a rope thrown into the night,
a plea, a promise: to "continue their ancient rhythm, breaking stride"…
And the calf? He learns the shape
of survival—curves his body
around the absence of quiet,
follows behind the wake of his mother,
listens for her soothing voice
as they travel the vast quilt of ocean, together.
"Not disappearing from their home waters, hanging on”
Jamin is a senior at Chenango Forks High School in Binghamton, New York. He enjoys soccer, basketball, writing and learning more about technology and programming. He cares about the environment and the protection of our ecosystem. Jamin intends to study computer engineering but hopes to continue writing and caring for the environment.
Read more winning entries from the 2025 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.