First Place, Grades 10-12
Paper Lanterns by Caroline P.
Books are swallowed by fire
words descend like dust.
Who will save them,
the things that fill us
with light,
give artistry
to dreary lives.
Who will take the pen,
light the flame,
allow the words to reunite
and books to rise.
Again they will sail
through minds like paper lanterns
across the sky.
>h3>Second Place, Grades 10-12
Picture Perfect by Elijah J.
I see these plastic people, Barbie dolls.
With their dream houses and expensive cars.
And their plastic friends, at their plastic malls.
Getting “white-girl wasted” at plastic bars.
Plastic masks are completely transparent.
Such a hollow frame, there’s nothing inside.
They need plastic Kens for plastic marriage.
They only love money, such plastic wives.
But I’m plastic too, since I love these girls.
In their plastic party, life’s a child's game.
We’re just plastic kids in a plastic world.
I love plastic ones because we're the same.
We worship plastic idols, live or fake.
But it's trivial because plastic breaks.
Third Place, Grades 10-12
Recess by Regan F.
I can remember
that dreaded game of tag.
Those blue soccer balls that came,
like cannonballs,
over the fence.
Sitting to finish lunches,
singing songs,
inventing worlds.
The mulch that always snuck its way
into our shoes.
The yellow ladder
where I sat to read books
and have conversations
about superheroes
with a boy,
whom barely knew me,
but thought he loved me.
I can remember
the whistle that
called us to line up
and return to class,
the conversations
we tried to finish before
being shushed into silence.
I can remember
the scraped knees that led to printed Band-Aids
and cupcake stickers,
all the time we spent
trying to learn to flip over a beam,
the monkey bars—
forbidden because one too many students had fallen—
and the contest we made
of climbing up the long, blue slide,
a trivial matter we all thought held great importance.
Honorable Mentions, Grades 10-12
Chloe A.
Keighan S.
Eula C.
Samuel W.
Jonathan C.
First Place, Grades 7-9
Rain Window by Mira D.
Rain taps away
Tapity
Tip-tip
Tap
At my roof.
I like it when
Rain drowns out
The shouts
From below
Until they are nothing
And I disappear
Out the window
Down the fire escape
Of a small
Apartment building
across the street
Where worn shoes
And
Hand-me-down sweaters
That
Always have a hole
In the same place
Don't matter.
Where shadows are warped
And
Nothing is as it should be.
In the rain
Everyone sees the same way
A little bit fuzzy
And a whole lot cold
Drops fall from the heavens.
They are old windows
That are made from
Old glass
So that everything looks
Distorted,
And so that I can dance and smile
Away from the world
And nobody can tell the difference between
Raindrops
And
Tears.
Second Place, Grades 7-9
Their Talk by Mira D.
They talk about themselves
In their brightly colored clothing
And jewlery
The outer shell to the shallow inside.
Words
Drip from their mouths
Like a wet painting
Whose owner left it standing upright
On a blank piece of paper
And now
The sheet is drenched In colors it does not want
And feelings it doesn't need
I wish they would lay flat again.
Each one is a cookie cutter version
Of the next
Baked in exactly the same way
And while
Frosted differently
They all taste the same.
Details fall from their mouths
Like leaves on a tree
In a cold autumn breeze
That shakes
Even the strongest oak.
You can tell a lot by a person who only
Listens
Or maybe you can't.
Until the painting lays flat
The cookies are made right
And the leaves have Fallen
They will never know.
Third Place, Grades 7-9
When I Speak by Athena H.
When I speak you hear your name
When I speak the dog barks
When I speak you should listen
Because when I speak
You should of not spoken
When I speak the night is dark
When I speak the day is bright
When I speak it is magical
Because when I speak
You should of not spoken
When I speak the cat’s meow
When I speak to you
When I speak
You speak too
Do not speak when I am speaking
Do peep when I speak
Do not make one single no
Because when I speak
You don’t speak
Because when I speak
Honorable Mentions, Grades 7-9
Eric S.
Mina D.
Job C.
Rebekah B.
Sarah H.
Mira D.
