(J58 and her family, by Mark Sears, NOAA Research Permit 21348. L-R, J51, J22, J41, J58, J19, J37 – thanks to Maya Sears for IDs!)

Like so many things, The Whale Trail‘s annual “Welcome the Orcas” celebration went virtual this year. The announcement we published in December included an invitation to enter a writing contest. Today – news of the winners!

The Whale Trail announces the winners of its first Welcome the Orcas Writing Contest, held in December 2020 to celebrate the seasonal return of the endangered southern resident orcas to central Puget Sound. Writers Andy Havens and Hannah Lindell-Smith, both West Seattleites, took top honors in their age groups.

“We are grateful to everyone who participated, and helped us welcome the southern residents with heart, and art!” said Whale Trail director Donna Sandstrom. “With the recent additions of J57, J58 and L125, there are three new calves to welcome! The southern resident community has grown to 75 individuals — here’s to a new season of hope for the orcas, and the world.”

First Prize
The Librarian, by Andy Havens (Adult Category)
J57, by Hannah Lindell-Smith (9th to 12 grade)

Second Prize
Love Them, Protect Them, by Lucy Larkin (Adult Category)
Orca Song, by Hannah Lindell-Smith (9th to 12 grade)

Honorable Mention
Welcome Home, Orcas, by Bobbi Fabbelano (Adult Category)

Read all the prize-winning poems on The Whale Trail’s website here; the first-prize winners are below:

The Librarian
by Andy Havens

The orca’s tongue is tattooed in crowblack ink
with the whole history of the Hoh
and the names of Nisqually who breathed the air
in the sacred space between hawk and bear –
hung to cure in a frozen smoke.

In the blackfish grin, written on salmon skin,
lives the library of the Lummi
and the forgotten words to S’Klallam songs
sung in the fog from which they’re drawn –
then gone like a dream’s unblooming.

But the orca speaks, too, the newer words
of submarine and ferry boat
and the sharp dialect of high skylines
that replace the flesh with the crystalline –
concrete terms being asked to float.

A blackfin ripple loops like cursive in the bay
as the orca pens the Pacific tome
and writes Sound verses beneath the surface
in a Salish hand whose arc is perfect –
the scrimshaw line of tooth and bone.

*Andy Havens is husband, a father of two, and a US Army veteran living on the ersatz island of West Seattle. He is currently writing poetry focused on Pacific Northwest geography, nature, and history. His poetry has appeared in Fragments Literary Magazine and the online journal Whatever Keeps the Lights On.

(Backlit blows of J pod in Puget Sound. Photo by Mark Sears, NOAA Permit 21348)

J57
by Hannah Lindell-Smith

You are the wind.

You are the Sun and Moon that light the way.
You are the stars in the darkest of nights.
You are the rainbow after the storm.

You are the waves you swim through,
the child of the life-giving water and your family’s tears.
You are the blood of a dying universe.

You are the fighter and survivor.
You are the salmon that travel hundreds of miles
to give their lives to you.

You are the stories your family will tell you.
You are all that they will give to you,
and the love you will give to all.

You are everything that has come before.
You are the one we have been waiting for.

*Hannah Lindell-Smith is a 14-year-old from Seattle. She is a student, activist, writer, and change-maker, future and present. Watch out, world!