The Louine Schaufler Youth Poetry Contest: HS Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the HS portion of the Louine Schaufler Youth Poetry Contest! Thank you to everyone who submitted to the contest. Thank you to our judge John Nelson. Enjoy the poems :)

First Place"Remember Poem"By Mary FelizRememberEven when the weight in your chest is all consumingWhen you look in the mirrorAnd cannot recognize the wide eyes staring backDo not let the muffled noiseThe numbness in your limbsDistract you from what is real and trueRememberRemember you are realFlesh and blood and boneRemember the tight squeeze of angerThe times your eyes shone with tearsRemember the smilesThe laughterThe moments you feel, so powerfullyIt seems your chest might burstInto an explosion of wordsAnd music, and lightRemember the happinessin moments when you are just youWhen you drive homeAnd feel yourself slippingRemember the way the setting sunClings to the skyPainting the earth in goldRemember the way your heart skips a beatAs the light catches just soAnd it hits you for the thousandth time that dayThat the world is beautiflRemember the sadnessThe dull ache of lonelinessThe sharp, stabbing pain of loveRemember the thundering of your heartAs you close your eyes against the dark of nightAnd dreamRemember poetryAnd musicAnd dancingRemember the feeling of being aliveRemember

Second Place"The Things I Understand"By Sydney CampbellI understand the feeling you getwhen you cross the finish lineand I know why people take walkson cool fall days.I understand the importance offamily timeand doing your homework honestly.I know what it’s like to get loveand to give love.I understand why people do sportsand why you shouldn’t walk on otherpeople’s grass.I know why people listen to musicand write poetry.I don’t understandwhat it’s like to not have foodor knowing you can’t pay the bills.I don’t know what it’s like tobe confined to a wheelchair orhave a prosthetic limb.I don’t know what a riotlooks likeor what it’s like to live in fearof the governmentor your neighbor.There are many things that I amfamiliar with andthere are many things that I am not.I know that I will have a differentexperienceand a different storythan every single personthat I pass on the streetand meet in the store.I’m grateful for the comfort I knowbut am blessed to see the persistenceof others in trials I may never grasp.

Third Place"Drift"By Jackson PaslayDriftIn’Down theStreet at nightIn the cad-ill-acWith no rhyme or reason you past protestors with signsIgnoring their signs of destruction, violence, and death nearYet you keep speeding up, faster and faster ignoring their signs; ignoring their candlesticksUntil you realize your coveted ride is sent up in space like Blanco on chilled AugustEnclenched in the hands of the elders, the tentacles began enlacing over your cadillac; this thanatophobia never felt, be--fore--even in your weirdest situations of xenophobia and racism. Despite being the proletariat for thy whole life you managed to embrace embourgeoisement comparing yourself to the ants now you’re myrmecophilous in the face of the brobdingnagianCreatures. Entering the darkest void of the unbeknownst universe with 5-dimensional beings, filled with the weeping Old Ones that endlessly cry blood, lead, and cries from the myrmecophilous creatures under their brobdingnagian skeletal structure that plead to them, scream to them, and beg for mercy from the knees of murderers.Thrown from your Cadillac you are face-to-face with Yog-Sothoth, the keeper of the gate; the binger of the Old Ones. Yog-Sothoth beckons to you, waiting for a word but you are nothing but a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mere mortal. Yog-Sothoth understands this and throws you into the Court of the Linen Woman, a one willowness, cries, lead, and beauty.You try to make sense of this beauty of cosmic imagination and humanity yet she is in no mood for your mercifully cries of compliments. No fake-ass prayers can pray away what shall happen to you; what will happen to you. Catching your fawn, she gives you a Thanatognomonic look filled with brimstone of tears tainted with lead, flint, dirty water, and rust.The Linen Woman opens its mouth, but nothing but bullets come out--at first and the screams of the sirens yet just like the protestor you cover your ear and tie yourself to your internal mast like Odysessus. The bullets finally cease their existence and the river of tears begin to beraid harder and harder as the volutportus Linen Woman begins to formulate vowels. You begin to stare harder into the Abyss of her gorgeous blue eyes while she prepares to speak with unparagonble horrors and sentences never heard by your ears.“You’ve come to the Old Ones, yet you can’t even speak to us crying Ancients nor can you speak or give anything worth of value to the crying ones from your own dimension; the weeping willows as myself; the gaspers of air--crying from their choking last breaths; the crying of people with holes in their gaballas; the crying of people floating above the ground; the cries of the ants as you yourself would see yourself above. But here, in the Court--you’re nothing but some incomprehensible schizoid man that has caused us to cry oh so many tears of elements, items, and fluids that you yourself would’ve filled people with or rather ignore that they were ingesting.”Here, in the Court, the Linen Woman endlessly stares at you for at least some quiver from your lips, but you’re not but a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious granular spec who, back in the past dimension was the brobdingnagian creatures that reign over your existence.“Follow the spiral down, down the spiral you must go for your atonement or whatever you shall receive from following the spiral of the infinite numbers--down to the very last one. Will you die? You shall think of death every single microsecond. What shall your epitaph be? Confusion? Nihil? Fear? Embourgeoisement? You never had or do have anything of remote value to speak and for that your epitaph shall be determined: Nihil.”From behind you, you hear the children of Dagon open the cellar door to the endless spiral you shall approach and get closer and closer and closer toLookingDOWNThis SPIRALEADS DOWNAND DOWNDOWN YOU MUST GODESCEND LIKE THE NAVISON DIDHEADOWNTHESPIRAL

Honorable Mention"The Place for Me"By Roman Slackbirds sing their fall songsas the forest animals scurry across the floormy shoes lightly crunching the worn leavesas I walk through the woodsmy eyes are drawn to the amber rays of lightas they shine through the seasoned treeswalking slowlyI feel the wind flowing freely through the forestas it spins and twists loose leaves on the floorI hear the distant calls of a RobinAs its songs echo the woodland.I taste the coming of fall in the air HOas I continue my walk, I know,this is the place for me

Honorable Mention"Pumpkins"By Em KimballLeavesmade of gold and amberRain down on the country road.They carpet the groundAnd crunch beneath footfalls.PumpkinsMade of autumn dreamsAnd the happiness of childrenLitter the doorsteps of suburban homes,Faces carved into them.LanternsMade of steel and warmthHang from posts and doorwaysJoyously screaming of crisp nightsAnd family fires.Country LanesMade of hayrides and pumpkin pickingOf happiness and harvesting.A place for late-night drivesAnd fun with family and friends.Evening firesMade of warmth and laughter,Of roasting marshmallowsAnd telling stories.A time of friendly bonding.