For the second year running, the Memphis Soul Prize, a poetry competition for high school students in the Memphis area, has come to White Station. Competitors have one week to draft their poetry before submitting their poetry pieces.

Mya Schroder (11) will be submitting her poetry in the Memphis Soul Prize this year.

“I did the competition last year and I just had a lot of fun doing it,” Schroder said. “I like writing poetry and the soul prize is a good creative outlet.”

The topic of the competition is the city of Memphis and what living in Memphis means to the writer.

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“The topic is the same every year, so it helps a lot with the creative-writing process because I can build off of what I did last year,” Schroder said.

One winner will be selected from each competing high school and a finalist will be selected. The finalist will obtain city-wide recognition for his/her poetry piece and will have a lyric video featuring the winning poem.

Ellen Barnes (11) also plans to participate in the competition for the second year.

“I’m excited for [the competition] this year,” Ellen Barnes (11) said. “I think that poetry is really underrated in most schools and this gives a lot of good writers a chance to show what they can do.”