Ode to Healthy Futures: Create Poetry That Envisions a Healthier Future

Posted by Pulitzer Center on July 1, 2025

Health is personal. But health science can feel distant, complicated, and cold. How do we make space for the personal in science—and ensure that our personal ideas and decisions about health have a foundation in science?

Ode to Healthy Futures is a cross-disciplinary project designed to make health science stories accessible and relevant. At the same time, it offers a welcoming space to share personal connections to the science that shapes our lives. After exploring short texts and photos about a health topic, participants are invited to share their reflections, connections, and dreams for a healthier future through lines of poetry.

Though the Ode to Healthy Futures platform can be navigated by students, educators, and community members without introduction, we have also created a workshop guide to deepen participants’ experience. Get started with the workshop guide, or head straight to the Ode for Healthy Futures poem-writing tool to choose a topic in health science, explore a news story, and write a poem in response. Submissions will be viewable in the site’s public gallery.