First Place Winner

Spring 2010

($500 Scholarship Prize)

Apple Slice Earth

 

The flesh of an apple appears like laced frost that

spans a windowpane on a morning when

the sky hangs low like weighted steel --

yes, this image, when translucent,

(as if

God

cut a

slice

of the

Earth,

so

thin

you

can

see

the

light

trou

ugh it)  when seems like glass is an apple - crisp and

succulent, chilled and sliced

Camille Peeples, TX, Hyde Park Baptist HS

 

SECOND PLACE WINNER

($300 Scholarship Prize)

A Thousand Nights

 

A red dawn strikes no mirage

Wavering in the heat, even my voice shriveled timidly

I live with feelings that mean nothing,

Yet I own the thousand nights

But a dream of only one in the desert

I sought the oasis in your royal blue eyes

A thousand nights

One love in salutation

When I fall to sleep on a golden carpet

Dew borne on the petals of

Drying up in the wavering haze of heat

I live believing in the words that say

That the weight of love binds my heart

And the weight of the dream of the day I’d meet you

Calls the thousand nights

A shadow of tonight’s gentle winds eases the pain of despair

A thousand days, a thousand more nights

A dream that on just one, my heart will wander into the sand of an hourglass

Only one dream of that night in desolation

Until I fall to sleep on the golden carpet

Maya Gouw, NC, Home School

 

 THIRD PLACE WINNER

($150 Scholarship Prize)

Universal Understanding

Gravity, Life, the Sun, an Apple—distinct, yet the same—pieces of a puzzle.

Protons and Neutrons with Electrons whizzing by at the speed of light

All in orderly c o n f u s i o n.

Gears in a mechanical Universe working in time with the rhythm of clockwork

with unbreakable laws, ticking forwards, always forwards, never backwards.

However, nothing is absolute; Definitive time is man’s illusion.

Everyone is searching for a single answer,

but there is more than one.

As the same poem can evoke hatred and love in two different people,

                                            so the true meaning, like a mirage,

                                                       meanders in and out of focus,

                                                                       is lost and found in every life.

                                Uncertainty is certain.

The journey is eternal,

 truth will come piece by piece.

Sam Kushner-Lenhoff, CA, Long Beach Polytechnic High School

EDITOR'S CHOICE SELECTION

To Grow Up Tame

To grow up tame

Like the others who wait

For the ball and chain

That locks them to

Unloved marriage.

There are women

With red red lips

Who are beautiful and cruel,

Driving all the men

Crazy and wild,

And later

Laughing them all away

Like they were

Never there.

They won’t give their

Powers away.

So I’ve begun a Quiet war.

One where I never pick up the dishes

Or scoot the chair back in.

One where I leave the table like a

Man.

Jennifer Crane,, WA, Sunnyside High School

ALL CERTIFIED NATIONAL WINNERS FROM SPRING 2010

The Afternoon - Nora Poole, MN, Twin Cities Academy High School

Emotive Transit - Emily Winters, NY, Fayetteville-Manlius Senior High School

jumping back into the boat - Alison Beattie, NJ, Mount Olive High School

Polishing Jade - Bonnie Lea, CA, Walnut High School

Astray - Auntin Smith, CA, Chico Senior High School

First Rainy Day - Helen Chen, CA, Evergreen Valley High School

Apple Slice Earth - Camille Peeples, TX, Hyde Park Baptist High School

Darkness That Sometimes Appears - Emily Holte, OR, North Medford High School

The Untold - Emily Rogers, GA, Adairsville High School

alchemy - Destiny Hemphill, AR, Conway High School West

Universal Understanding - Sam Kushner-Lenhoff, CA, Long Beach Polytechnic HS

To Grow Up Tame - Jennifer Crane, WA, Sunnyside High School

Dreams of a Playground in September - J.M. Colon, NJ, Christian Brothers Academy

Freedom From Self - Hanna Marie Prouse, LA, Barbe High School

...is the Color of Youth - Victoria Stewart, MD, Paint Branch High School

O Nothingness... - Samuel L. Wick, OR, Hermiston Senior High School

The Heart's Craving - Rhonda Hindi, NC, Asheville High School

A Lasso, A Saddle - Katherine Ripley, NJ, Ocean Township High School

All the Unsaid Things - Camille Brown, WA, Gig Harbor High School

lost confession - Peyton Lunzer, WA, Bainbridge High School

Time and Energy - Kelly Hogan, WA, Snohomish High School

Cancer - Gianna Whitver, NJ, Ocean Township High School

A Thousand Nights - Maya Gouw, NC, Home School

Recovery - Kasey Clingan, NM, Eldorado High School

Sanctified Spray - Kanika Mathur, FL, Harrison School for the Arts

Virtues in Verse - Natalie A. Sharp, GA, Bradwell Institute

Shadow - Flora Greeson, CA, Malibu High School

Untitled - Sarah Levin, Julia R. Masterman Lab/Demo School