2022
- 1st Place Winner, Gigantic Sequins' International Teen Sequins Poetry Contest selected by Aidan Forster (Nov 2022)
- Runner Up, United States National Youth Poet Laureate (May 2022)
- 2nd Place Winner, Amanda Gorman Future Voices Poetry Prize (Sep 2022)
- 1st Place Winner, Novelly's LISTEN Poetry/Spoken Word Contest (May 2022)
- 2nd Place in Poetry, Bennington Young Writers Awards – 3 poems (Apr 2022)
- Honorable Mention, Princeton Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Prize – Broken Abecedarian for America (Apr 2022)
- Honorable Mention, Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest – Firework Girls (Apr 2022)
- Regional Winner (5 Gold, 5 Silver, 8 HM), Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (Feb 2022)
- West Regional Youth Poet Laureate, Urban Word NYC (Feb 2022)
- Finalist, Adroit Journal's Gregory Djanikian Scholars (Feb 2022)
2021
- Finalist in Writing (Poetry), National YoungArts Foundation (Dec 2021)
- Honorable Mention in Poetry, Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest – Sea-elegy (Nov 2021)
- Commended, Foyle Young Poets of the Year – Fish-bodied (Oct 2021)
- Commended, The Adroit Prizes for Poetry – Fish-bodied (Sep 2021)
- Best of the Net Nominee, Longleaf Review – Supermarket Horse (Sep 2021)
- Best of the Net Nominee, Petrichor Magazine – Skedaddle for Blind Girl (Aug 2021)
- Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate, LA Public Library (June 2021-present)
- 1st Place Winner, Columbia College Chicago Young Authors Contest (Poetry) – Ghazal For K (May 2021)
- Honorable Mention, Walt Whitman Student Poetry Contest – Archery Lesson With Your Fake Father (May 2021)
- Runner up, Animal Heart Press Chapbook Contest – L(EYE)GHT (Mar 2021)
- Honorable Mention, 2021 Coastal Art & Poetry Contest – Briny Cravings In a Dream (Mar 2021)
- 1st Place Winner and Finalist, F(r)iction Fall Poetry Contest – Under the neon of nightmarket, selected by poetry judge Rachel Mennies (Mar 2021)
- 1st Place Winner, Fitzgerald Museum Student Literary Contest – THIS SIDE, REIMAGINED (Mar 2021)
- Silver Key (x4), Honorable Mention (x2), Scholastic Art & Writing Awards – various poems (Jan 2021)
2020
- Pushcart Prize Nominee, perhappened Magazine – haibun for everything that dies this summer (Nov 2020)
- Pushcart Prize Nominee, Knight's Library Magazine – Lineage (Nov 2020)
- 2nd & 3rd Place Winner, PTSA Annual Reflections Award, Literature Category (Poetry) – Escapade and Lost Things (2020)
- National Winner, JUST POETRY National Poetry Quarterly – monsoon season (Jul 2020)
- Finalist, Pulitzer Center Fighting Words Poetry Contest – River War (Jun 2020)
- Best Written Piece, Braille Institute Creative Expressions Contest – smudge (May 2020)
This beautiful poem [Kim's poem "This Side, Reimagined"] speaks directly into the legacy of Fitzgerald's literature and unfinished buildings. In an intertextual key, the poet converses across time with F. Scott's novel, creating sparks with each enjambment. In looking at war, the poem revises what man learns from it, turning the usual lesson on its head while placing this in the context of Fitzgerald's life. Daring and revolutionary in a soft way - in a way that challenges the modality and aggression of war itself - Kim recontextualizes the past in lyric.
— Alina Stefanescu, poetry judge for the Fitzgerald Museum Student Literary Contest (THIS SIDE, REIMAGINED)
To hear a Jessica Kim poem is to hear a voice of the future, where "disabilities" are subsumed into a single category: Human. Hers is a poetry of vision and engagement unlike any other I have read.
— Bob Holman, Author of 17 Books & 2022 National Youth Poet Laureate Judge
Background image from Unsplash
