We're delighted to announce the winner of the My Future South Portland youth poetry contest. Congratulations and THANK YOU to Julietta (Jules) Vázquez for her poem "Fourteen Square Miles of Tomorrow." The contest called for young people to submit their vision for the future of South Portland. This poem will be featured in the City's new Comprehensive Plan, the foundational document currently underway that will guide the next 10 years of growth and development across the community. We hope you enjoy and are inspired by the Jules's poem!
Fourteen Square Miles of Tomorrow
by Julietta (Jules) Vázquez
The air hums electric on summer nights,
streets stitched with bike lanes and wildflowers,
Casco Bay sparkling like a kept promise beyond the pines
We walk barefoot through damp park grass
where concrete once ruled,
laughing under streetlights fueled by sun,
breathing deep
no smog, no sorrow.
The lighthouses still stand,
older than memory,
their beams sweeping across a city that finally listens to the tides.
Ferry horns echo across murals and open-air markets,
kids dart between food trucks and music rising from the docks,
while surfers and old sailors swap stories by the fire.
Neighbors trade seedlings and second chances,
front porches flicker with guitars and open doors,
housing isn't a prize
it's a promise.
The ocean, once bruised by our forgetting,
shimmers clean, whales carving silver arcs through the open blue
and the tides carry only hope to the shore
Here, we don’t build walls
We build tables, longer and longer,
until no one stands alone
South Portland
a city stitched together by hands,
hearts,
and the stubborn belief
that tomorrow deserves our best today.
About Jules
Julietta (Jules) Vázquez is a proud Taíno descendant, dancer, and community advocate from South Portland, Maine. A recent graduate of Baxter Academy for Technology and Science, she’s headed to the University of Southern Maine to study Biochemistry on a Pre-Med track.
When she’s not writing, she’s on stage with Maine State Ballet, leading environmental research through the Baxter Plastics Project, or serving as the youth representative on the South Portland Human Rights Commission. Jules is passionate about storytelling, science, and social justice. In her free time, you can find her at the beach, listening to music, hunting for secondhand treasures in Portland, or discovering her next favorite iced coffee.