About
When after decades of delighting thousands of young readers, Boston’s beloved Children’s Bookshop closed its doors due to COVID and ended its decades-long children’s poetry competition, sisters Maya and Alissa Rabin decided to pick up the torch and give other children the same joy of opportunity to share their poetry with like-minded peers and experienced judges. They formed a non-profit Boston Children’s Poetry, Org., created the website, solicited judges and voila – New England’s annual Children’s Poetry Competition was born. The Competition is designed to encourage children from pre-K through 8th grade to share their poems with the public and read the poetry of other young poets to create a vibrant community of their own.
People
Alissa is a high school student at Milton Academy, where she is an opinion writer for the Milton Paper and the Milton Measure, plays basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse, sings in the Ep!c acapella group, competes on the math team, and acts in various productions. Alissa has received 3 Silver Keys and 2 Honorable Mentions in the Scholastic Arts and Writing Competition, as well as awards in speech and debate competitions. In the past, Alissa served as Secretary General of the Model UN Club and won numerous awards at the Model UN conferences. Alissa loves spending her summers at Amherst College, participating in the Writers' Workshop and the Great Books programs. She lives in Newton, MA, with her sister, parents, grandparents, and mini-Bernedoodle Charlie. Alissa is also a Youth Ambassador to Ukraine for the Sunflower of Peace, where she fundraises for the Ukrainian zoos and animal shelters affected by the war. Alissa’s favorite poets are Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Shel Silverstein, Sylvia Plath, and Alexander Pushkin.
Maya won a poetry competition in 2017 and had the pleasure of reading her poem in front of the public, which included her friends, family, and teachers, who encouraged her to write poetry. She wanted to share this experience with other young poets and decided to create this non-profit together with her sister, Alissa. Currently, Maya is a student at Amherst College, where she studies economics and political science, plays soccer and ultimate frisbee, and enjoys debating at international Model UN conferences. Maya interned for a federal judge, served as a congressional intern for Congressman Jake Auchincloss, worked as the head of the girls’ soccer program at a summer camp, tutored students for mathematics, designed websites, and worked for a humanitarian start-up at the MIT Design Lab. She currently serves as a Youth Ambassador to Haiti for The Haiti Projects' Girls Soccer Club and as a Youth Ambassador for Ukraine for the Sunflower of Peace, where she fundraises for the victims of the continuing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Maya is interested in a career in international relations and public policy. Her favorite poets are Tom Lehrer, Alexander Pushkin, Edgar Allen Poe, and Maya Angelou.
Brian Simoneau teaches Creative Writing and English at Milton Academy. He is the author of the poetry collections No Small Comfort (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) and River Bound (C&R Press, 2014), and his poems have appeared at Poetry Daily and in Boston Review, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Salamander, Waxwing, and other journals.
Gavin has competed in various poetry competitions, winning the Laurence S. Persky Memorial Award for his high school, in addition to both regional and national gold medals in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Competition. Now, he would like to give back and help other students who also have aspirations for poetry. A graduate of Milton Academy, Gavin is currently a student at Middlebury College, where he studies Computer Science and Economics, and plays for the Varsity soccer team. Gavin has spent three years as a summer camp counselor for young children. He has also worked on the board of his high school’s writing magazine, Magus Mabus, and has helped as a peer writing tutor for struggling students. Gavin likes to read, play chess, and write poetry in his free time. His favorite poets are Robert Frost, Jenny Xie, and Amanda Gorman.
Jonathan Lipman is Professor Emeritus of History and Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College, where he taught East Asian history and cultures (1977-2015). He studied in Taiwan, Japan, and China, earned a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. in East Asian history from Stanford, and held visiting professorships at Yale, University of Washington, Harvard, Oregon State University, and Quest University (British Columbia). He has loved reading poetry most of his life, from Emily Dickinson and Bob Dylan to Tao Yuanming, Matsuo Bashō, and Kim Chi-ha. In 1961 he won a first prize in the National Scholastic poetry contest and continues to write occasional poems, sometimes haiku.
A graduate of Milton Academy, Luke spent his senior project writing and revising nature-inspired poems under the direction of Lisa Baker, one of the two creative writing teachers there. Luke has published multiple essays and poems in his school newspaper and has won the Laurence S. Persky Memorial Award for his high school. Luke is currently a student at Tufts University, where he studies Electrical Engineering and philosophy, and plays for the Varsity soccer team. Luke has spent three years as a summer camp counselor for young children and has helped as a peer writing tutor for struggling students. Luke also was a New Student Orientation leader at Milton Academy, where he introduced incoming students to the importance of DEIJ work. His favorite poets are Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Oliver.
Annie DiAdamo is a high school English teacher who received her BA in English from UMass-Amherst. She has been teaching at a number of private schools in Boston. Annie is also working towards her Master's degree in English at Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English. Her favorite poets are Langston Hughes and Shel Silverstein. In her free time she can be found trying new restaurants in Boston and finding new bookstores around the city.
Alice Lucey was a long time teacher/administrator at The Park School in Brookline. She taught English among other things, and she especially loved reading and writing with her classes. Alice enjoys just about every kind of poetry. Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Shakespeare and her former students rank as her favorite poets.
Marina lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and her dog, Zaza. She was trained as a concert pianist in her native Georgia (a former Soviet republic), but after marrying her husband, she went to live in the UK for a few years and became a K-12 educator for over four decades. She has published articles in Futurism, a science and technology website, has worked as an editor for National Geographic, and has published a book for young readers about the magic of math. Currently, she is translating a novel from Georgian into English about a young man’s life in Soviet and post-Soviet Georgia. Among her favorite poets are Rumi, Ishikawa Takuboku, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Emily Dickinson.
Lisa Baker has directed the Creative Writing Program at Milton Academy for over two decades and teaches courses in creative nonfiction and journalism. Through her teaching career, her students have won hundreds of regional, national, and international awards for their creative work across genres. She runs the Bingham Visiting Writer Speaker Series at Milton, inviting and hosting professional writers to campus; and she co-founded and directs the Humanities Workshop, a consortium of public and private schools examining urgent social issues through the lens of the humanities. She has presented at conferences around the country, and her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, including Quarterly West, Denver Quarterly, Confrontation, Epoch, The Malahat Review, Puerto Del Sol, Crossconnect: Writers of the Information Age, Atlantic Unbound, African American Review, and NAIS Magazine.
Paul works at the Park School, where he taught one of the Co-Founders the year she was in third grade. When not in his classroom or haunting the aisles of the Brookline Booksmith, he can reliably be found reading by the water on Cape Cod. His favorite poets are E.E. Cummings and Victor Hugo.
Lena is a certified public accountant with experience ranging from Advisory and Assurance Services at Ernst and Young to both internal finance and operations of premier private equity firms in Manhattan. Currently, she manages several businesses including a multi locational medical facility. Lena's passion is travel, and she is fluent in a number of languages. She lives in CT with her 3 kids, her husband Lenny, and their cat Barsik, skis, and enjoys hiking with her family. Lena's favorite poets are Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak.
Irene is originally from Ukraine, but now lives in Massachusetts with her husband Dmitri and their two kids. Irene is the General Counsel for an educational technology company. Among her favorite poets are Robert Burns, Ivan Franko, and Maya Angelou, one of the three famous and inspirational Mayas after whom she named one of the Co-Founders (try to guess the other two Mayas).
David (Davey) is a student at Milton Academy, where he serves as Secretary of the Speech & Debate Team, performs in theater productions, plays cello in the orchestra, and participates in student leadership initiatives including the Disciplinary Committee and the DEIJ Board. He has performed in more than a dozen stage productions across multiple schools, including A Doll’s House and Clue!, and conducted the full Milton Academy Orchestra during its 2025 Winter Performance. Davey is a three-time Best Novice Interpreter, a National Qualifier in Declamation, and has earned multiple top placements in statewide speech competitions. He is also an elected member of Magus Mabus, Milton’s student literary journal. Davey is the author of Fields of Violet and Stone, a self-published poetry collection, and his writing has received two Honorable Mentions and a Regional Silver Key from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. He hopes to pursue a career in human rights law, combining storytelling and advocacy to promote equity and amplify underrepresented voices.