Hanalei third-grader wins Kauai grand prize in peace poetry contest
A Hanalei third-grader turned a peace poem into Kauai’s grand prize, showing how one classroom assignment can carry countywide weight.
A third-grader from Hanalei Elementary School brought Kauai’s top honor home by writing about peace in the language of island life, from starlit skies to warm sand and birdsong. Mavin N. Davis won the Kauai grand prize in the 27th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Poetry Awards at Kapaa United Church of Christ on Saturday, May 23, 2026.
Davis also received congratulatory certificates from Gov. Josh Green and Mayor Derek Kawakami, along with a Kala ukulele and tuner, a prize package that gave the ceremony a distinctly local feel. Todd Ozaki, Kawakami’s executive assistant, and former Mayor JoAnn Yukimura presented the awards, underscoring how the contest continues to draw both political and educational leaders into a single forum for student work.
The recognition mattered beyond one winning poem. Three student finalists from two Kauai schools were honored as well, and Brent Andrews of Hanalei School was named Teacher of the Year. The project’s website says Andrews contributed a lesson plan for creating peace poems, suggesting that the success at Hanalei Elementary was rooted not just in talent, but in classroom teaching that gives students a place to write about civic values, nonviolence and the world they want to live in.
Davis’ poem stood out for tying peace to everyday natural images rather than conflict. Its scenes moved from quiet reading at night to a sky full of stars, then to warm sand, whistling trees, chirping birds and water flowing through a stream. For a county where nature shapes daily life, that kind of imagery can resonate with children and adults alike, especially in a school setting that treats writing as a way to practice both literacy and empathy.
The International Peace Poem Project, which organizes the annual awards, says it began in June 1996 when six-year-old Libby Barker wrote the first two lines in Lahaina. Since then, the project says it has grown to more than 200,000 lines from people in more than 90 countries, with tens of thousands of students in Hawaii and elsewhere submitting peace poems over the years. The group holds Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Poetry Awards on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island, and returned to in-person ceremonies in 2023 after virtual events during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Kauai has its own longer history with the contest. In 2010, more than 300 Kauai students took part in the countywide competition, and in 2015 Hanalei third-grader Javin Hennessy won the Kauai grand prize, the first third-grade grand-prize winner on the island. Davis now joins that Hanalei line of winners, giving the North Shore another young poet recognized for turning a lesson about peace into public expression.
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