2008 Honorable Mentions
(in alphabetical order)
Annamarie Alleyne-Lovell (Springfield)
Angela Buxton (Springfield)
Danuta Janiszewski (Springfield)
Youn Kim (Northfield Mt. Hermon)
Jessica McQuillan (South Deerfield)
Arielle Poirier (Springfield)
Kory Saxer (Springfield)
Alone
Young girl in tears runs down the stairs
She forgets her prayers and cares
In sneakers and her underwear
And ashy knees and messed up hair
With not a penny to her name
So sick and tired of playing games
And being in and out gods favor
Fickle, fickle-loves her...hates her
And decided if she can't save herself
She might as well just kill herself
And end the goddamned thing
She begged for help and needed an angel
Needed to see life in another angle
Glasses she was looking through were cracked
In this life she felt so trapped
Now there's nothing of her left
She's been losing sense of self
And decides if she can't save herself
She might as well just kill herself
And end the goddamned thing.
But there's just something deep inside her
That won't let her give up
Something that still believes a door opens
When another closes shut
She don't want all those people to be right
When they said she'd do absolutely nothing with her life
She just don't know where to go from there
She got the will ain't got the way
She flings her front door wide open
Wintertime, in sneakers and some underwear
Struggling to breathe
Darkness creeps up all around her
She's struggling to feel and see
People call her name behind her
They're wondering what's wrong
She sighs wondering how she can
Tell the only ones that love her still
That she has HIV
My name is Annamarie Alleyne-Lovell and I am junior at Springfield Central High School. I've always enjoyed reading which eventually lead to writing stories, poems, articles etc...I would like to (and if i have anything to say about it) be a Neurological Surgeon while writing on the side. What inspires me to write is my everyday experiences, the news and my family (who give me constant and everlasting support on anything i try to do).
I Remember...
Gym class games. All dressed the same.
Hand-me-downs and princess crowns
Payless shoes worn without shame.
Sandbox fights. Cartoons at night.
Mom tucked me in before she turned off the light.
Fresh cut fields and grass stained kneed
Grocery store isles with sweet tooth pleas.
Loosing teeth and unkempt hair
No one judged because no one cared.
The plays cape was like the great escape.
A pirate ship, or just a busted lip
From the monkey bars I couldn't grip.
Desktops that lift. Innocent romances.
Cooties and birthday gifts,
When did it really shift?
All the naïve questions with painful answers.
Where's the conviction that existed in those days?
Like light-up shoes they've faded but the memories stay.
Snacks and naps and arts and crafts
One page of homework inside our big backpacks.
The only rhyme I wrote was "Girls rule, boys drool!"
This is how I remember elementary school.
Angela lives in Springfield and attends Central High School.
"How To Live in a Box Marked Fragile"
All my life I have lived in flower stains
And in hollow egg shells, careful not to rock the
Cradle too much, for fear the motion will upset
The quiet song inside. All my life I have lived
In the month of November, where wanderlust and
Hope burns crisp in the cool, cutting air.
Apathy always came easy, but left hard and bitter
Realizing it's not always the purpose of being, but the act
Of existence that left me so drained. All my life I have lived
In moonbeams and under starbursts, too provoked
To comply, too underestimated to learn how to die.
All my life I have made love etched in every single blue vein
Pulse through the body, infiltrate the mind and soul, made
sure it
Didn't rest until it erupted out of the mouth and flew away, free
All my life I have lived in Today, for Yesterday pushed me away too soon
And Tomorrow is not ready for the life I bring. All my life I have lived, and
When I live it is not peaceful or docile - but more like chaos and fury -
Like the eruption of flowers from the ever repressing
Bud.
Danuta Janiszewski, a bright eyed dreamer of the lightest hue, finished her public education at Springfield Central High and is attending Mt. Holyoke in the fall. With life all around her waiting to be discovered, Danuta bases most of her work on stories and memories that echo and are as resounding as a tumbling waterfall on city concrete. She loves life and writing like a child, selfishly and with her whole heart. She lives in the moment, and never regrets a single step.
Free the fish
I asked them to free the fish,
from the tiny little tank,
"But you eat them,"
they said.
I shouted without sound,
"Death is just a moment,
while jail is everlasting,"
Youn Kim is a junior at Northfield Mt. Hermon School in Gill, MA. She is a Latin scholar, and she enjoys reading and writing poetry. Youn is an anti-pet, anti-fishtank, and anti-pillow person. You may contact her at sanctus90@hotmail.com.
Children of Babel
In this corner of the world
Stillness is a collection box
Into which travelers drop their coin.
The streets narrow in twilight,
Skulk like marauders by day;
Paths are beaten by wandering
Among rows of careworn slate.
This one's face is cracked,
This swept clean by a nursemaid
Of the Fall.
Smooth.
Smooth and uniform
Regiment peeping through the grass,
Singing through the flood of feline
Misuse.
Together at last,
We all feed upon the same free-falling snow.
Somewhere
Across this pulsing fishbowl
Beating murky blood through earthen veins,
Subway signs shout light at passersby
And beckon color-hungry bees into the hive;
A never-ending neon night
Where blue wasps sting new blooms in private.
The yellow pin in the map marks "Salut," the green "Ahoj;"
The slender purple head speaks only "Hola!"
They supply a clandestine war
Of papyrus misunderstanding,
One a place holder
For gleeful children
Releasing bubbles of rubber-bound mirth
To a waiting sky,
Another struggling to prop up
Hollow balloon bellies
Groping wildly for sustenance
But feasting on emptiness.
It is a net thrown out by God.
A carpet of tantalizing,
Lacy rain
Holds us fish like cobra eyes,
Sedated by a weighty segregation
Of blue and silver scales,
Drifting in a haze
Like nimrods with their prideful gaze
We float wordlessly side by side
Until we are no more.
It is only here
That our voices may be heard.
Each stone a brick of Babel,
Each voice spinning into silence
So profound that the babble ends
And the life begins in both directions.
Here
We shoot into reeds
And are woven into a mother's basket.
Here
We make a mockery
Of a fish's wish to fly,
Of bent spires reaching like open arms,
Shadowing Montmartre,
One of the small lots under which
We are all simply children of Babel.
I am a senior at Frontier Regional High School, where I am an active participant in all available vocal performance groups. A lover of "all creatures great and small," I pet-sit and volunteer at the Dakin Animal Shelter in my free time. I will attend Barnard College in the fall, where I tentatively plan to study English, French, and Biology.
Winter Love Poem
Bring on the winter snow, let it fall
As my spirit rises in your love's flaming heat
Let the cold winds blow, let them do so
I get carried away, like air I am so light
Where do we go? What do you know?
Doesn't matter, I'm with you
So come, o frosty flakes of white, ye icy death-kissed barren nights
For you and I shall rise and small love's fertile bloom
Someday soon.
Arielle is currently a senior at Springfield Central High School and is going to UMass Amherst in the fall. She would like to thank her teacher Mrs Mackie for re-igniting her interest in writing creatively, and hopes it will continue to be a source of self-expression for the rest of her life.
Ode To Amsterdam
True anarchy you say to me,
But truth is so contraire
This world of bliss you need to see,
So I will take you there.
The folks residing here are kind,
No evil in their bones.
Experience some states of mind
Illegal back at home.
In coffee shops or where you please,
You're truly free to do
The things that put your mind at ease
And make a better you.
I want to take a trip to see
The man I truly am
So I'm willing to pay the fee
To go to Amsterdam.
Kory lives in Springfield and attends Central High School.
(in alphabetical order)
Terrie Cin Alexis (Springfield) "who am i? i am me!" (Strongest Self Poem)
Anonymous - "Older Now" (Springfield) "BitterSweet" (Best Narrative Poem)
Michaelann Bewsee (Springfield) "The poets gather" (Best Social Commentary)
Gail Breyare (Palmer) "Leaving" (Most Musical Poem)
Andrew Richmond (Monson) "The Soloist" (Best Figurative Language)
V. Jane Schneeloch (Springfield) "Georgia O'Keeffe: Pelvis With Moon 1943" (Most Visual Poem)
Felix Vazquez (Holyoke) "FELIX #1" (Best Urban Voice)
Honorable Mention: Strongest Self Poem
who am i? i am me!
Who am I?
I am the person I was born to be.
I am the person God made me.
In his image, open your eyes so you can see, me.
Ten fingers, ten toes, two knees, two feet.
To carry me anywhere and everywhere my destiny leads.
Who am I?
I am the person inside you'd see,
if only you'd get to know me. I am humble, I am meek.
I am wild, a little care free, maybe even considered a freak.
I am plain, I am unique, I am ugly but yet so sweet.
I am so stupid til I am smart.
I think twice before I start.
I lead with my wisdom and follow with my heart.
I am so nice until I am mean, in those eyes green with envy.
So color blind that you'll never see the friends we could be.
I am unfit, misfit, too fit, always trying to be legit!
Just!!!! Quit!!!!
You can see me day or night! Wrong or right! Dark or light!!!!
No matter my fit, no matter how much of my so called faults, you dismiss.
To you all, I'll never be it.
Who am I?
I am every and anything in the eye of the beholder who
sees me. So look into my eyes and see whom you seek.
Just know that I am set on being me.
A native of New Orleans, Terrie now lives in Springfield. She has been writing since a young age, and likes writing to help others. She has been greatly inspired by being the mother of a special needs child. She will be publishing a book of poetry entitled "Intimate Thought of Love" this spring.
Honorable Mention: Best Narrative Poem
BitterSweet
At Fourteen
How, when I love you so, can you be married to a tall, angular woman named Mary Ann?
How can you be the father of six beautiful little girls?
(You kept trying, wanting a boy.)
In what ways can you be mine?
How can I be living in a dormitory, sneaking out to meet you in the middle of the night?
And then you go home, and I go back to a single room with a dresser and a bed.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be!
When you came striding, catfooted, down the street,
with a rifle over your arm and a bluetick hound on a leash,
how could I not have wanted to know you?
(And, God help us, a real coonskin cap on your head!
With the tail hanging down your back, beside your ponytail.)
And you smiled, and we talked about the dog,
and your flintlock muzzle-loader,
and about hunting.
What were you hunting, that afternoon?
How dare they lurk in the hall,
trying to catch me sliding out the kitchen door at 1:00 a.m.!
What will I say if there's a bed-check while I'm gone?
Will I have to go to breakfast with leaves in my underpants?
Or can I bear to leave you in time to get a shower?
Dry leaves, like our moments, shatter,
and they prickle and itch!
At Fifteen
We sit under a juniper tree, your brown eyes in mine.
How can my heart not burst from loving you so?
How can you be holding my hand, giving it a comforting squeeze,
Saying, "You're going to make some man a good wife."?
I want it to be you!
In the daytime I long for your presence.
I ache for your weight above me in the night.
I reach to cup your whiskery cheek, but only rarely feel your flesh.
Mostly I touch only my dreams.
They are the same, day and night.
I hurt; there are so many reasons why.
Why?
I sit in study hall and write a poem about you.
I call it "Bitters".
The English teacher gives it an "A".
(In June they will give it the school poetry prize.)
You have been the first.
Others played with me, toyed with me, but I was afraid.
For you I have opened my arms, my legs, and my heart.
No one could ever be as special as you are to me.
(Forty-three years later I will still think this,
although there have been so many others who were special in other ways.
But you were the first.)
When we are so together, so much the same, how can I be fifteen, and you thirty-four?
How can ANY gulf exist between us?
At Sixteen
Where I went last summer, they called it "home".
It has never been my home.
Home would be anywhere, if I were with you.
Now I am going to that other place again.
Once we stole a blanket off a horse, all warmed with his heat.
(We gave him another, colder one.)
We took it to the haymow and snuggled inside it and made love.
You have taught me to slide through the woods as silently as an Indian,
To load and fire your muzzle-loader,
To ski,
To hunt and shoot and clean a deer.
You have brought me sandwiches of venison on buttered bread, the deer I shot myself.
Your wife made them.
She thought they were for you.
With you I have learned a little about love.
And in spite of it all, a tiny lesson about trust.
I am not safe with myself, but I feel no danger with you, from you.
I have never felt safe with anyone before.
We sledded on the crust of last week's snow; it was as hard as ice.
We slid, fast!
From the hilltop above the high pasture, all the way to the bottom of the lowest one.
Between the strands of three barbed-wire fences!
I was terrified.
It was terrific!
I will always remember.
(I remember it still.)
I leave tomorrow.
This is our last time.
When your moment comes, you say, "Stop! Stop, now!",
This time I don't stop.
I am on top, and this will be the end, and I want to see what it feels like at the end.
It feels somehow finished, in a way it never felt before.
I feel full.
I feel empty.
I am exhausted.
How can this be over?
Always, before, I have turned eagerly toward you.
Now, reluctant, I must turn away.
The car door slams for the last time.
Your eyes meet mine, and you let out the clutch and pull away.
I stand there, numb;
my clutch will not engage.
Except to clutch your memory to my heart.
I will go on with life, but life holds nothing for me now.
Barely Seventeen
But I hold life inside me.
Now I must go to another home, a Home for Unwed Mothers.
They try to make it homelike, but we are all too troubled to care much.
(It is still better than that other place they call my home!)
I have had to give you up.
Now I must give up the son you always wanted.
If only I could be giving him to you!
(Could Mary Ann ever forgive him for being mine?)
I feel sad.
I feel lost.
I feel confused.
(It will be many years before I feel any outrage!)
I realize, now, you never said you loved me.
Next year I will go off to college and flunk out.
This poem is entirely factual; the events occurred between 1959 and 1963. "Older Now" lives in Springfield.
Honorable Mention: Best Social Commentary
The poets gather.
The revolutionary poets gather.
The revolutionary poets gather
on college campuses
where they have come to be heard
where someone else handles all the logistics, thank god
where they will be PAID
because poetry is WORK
and poets have a right to make a living
from their amazing ability
to pin joy and pain
to the page with the right words.
They have arrived
riding on aged white reputations
on Spanish surnames and decade-new African names
to talk to fresh young minds.
O dear children we will let you in
on why poetry is revolutionary
how poetry fights racism and sexism and imperialism.
We will tell you why these small words
have so much meaning beyond themselves
how the teacup leaves are a metaphor for the whole world
and maybe someday you too, you too, you too, and if you can't,
you can still be a part, you can still be inspired by us.
Meanwhile across the river and the railroad tracks, three sounds:
Almost too low to hear, awakening anger,
laying down the baseline, a soft mutter:
It ain't supposed to be like this,
It's supposed to be better.
It ain't supposed to be like this,
It's supposed to be better.
And a sound so high like a scream of horror:
My children, my children
How did this happen?
My children, my children
How did this happen?
Then the middle notes, which only need to be louder
to find each other:
I wish I had a job, a home.
I wish the cops would leave me alone.
I wonder if they rape my son
Behind the bars when he's alone.
I never thought I'd say this, but
I hate this fucking rice so much.
If she drops out of school, what then?
I went to the shelter but couldn't get in.
We wait in the line. I look in your eyes.
I think we are planning a big surprise.
Choreography will be done
by experts in sidestepping disaster.
Theme provided by necessity,
rhythm courtesy of our hearts.
Soon to be playing everywhere.
I was born in Springfield and have lived here for five/sixths of my life. I have two grown daughters and a granddaughter, as well as my sister's family. I'm co-founder of Arise for Social Justice, a low-income rights organization. I love: books, cats, elephants, justice, blogging, gardening and the ocean.
Honorable Mention: Most Musical Poem
Leaving
Don't wanna be Daddy's maid no more
Don't wanna scrub and wax his floor
Cook and clean till half past ten
Get up at six and do it all again
Gonna leave his laundry piled up high
Gonna leave his babies even if they cry
Don't wanna be Daddy's whore no more
Belly scarred from the children I bore
Snap his fingers and down I lay
Never get enough night and day
Gonna leave right now, gonna make some track
Gonna walk right out and not look back
Don't wanna be Daddy's toy no more
Gonna start right now and even the score
Plays with my heart, plays with my head
Can't believe one word that man has said
Gonna leave for good, gonna take the bus
Just be me, no more us
Gail lives in Palmer.
Honorable Mention: Best Figurative Language
The Soloist
Her back bends smoothly as she bears
a tremor from the strings, her long bow
breathing flame beneath a swirling stream
of night-black hair: aromatic jet,
the bursting rush of a bud in spring
from quivering lines of ancient lips,
melting even a prophet's heart
in the warm, wet world of their embrace;
a waterfall of vibrant strength,
this subtle slipping of her shape,
shining with distance, but shaken down:
diamonds pulsing, contact-shorn,
the very light itself reborn
into an open curtain alive
with prismed hearts and beating
songs spread across the sky.
Her peerless form surrenders,
instantaneous -
the flash of hubris spurned:
sharp beyond all reason; all clarity
in a universe, in one.
Andrew is a native of Monson, Massachusetts. Now completing his junior year as an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, he is pursuing an English major with a certificate in Medieval Studies, and a minor in Classical Culture. He enjoys both studying and writing poetry, and also commits himself to his responsibilities as Co-President of the UMass group Students for Environmental Awareness and Action (SEAA).
Honorable Mention: Most Visual Poem
Georgia O’Keeffe: Pelvis With Moon 1943
Long after skin has rotted,
sinew dried in the desert air,
meat stripped by scavengers,
these bones dance.
Freed from earthly tissue,
they float moonward,
calcified skirts curl in blue shadow.
This pair of ballerinas
scrape the cool evening desert shadows,
no longer needing water or sustenance,
they celebrate dryness and death,
enduring as they do
longer than the moon over their shoulder.
V. Jane Schneeloch began writing poetry shortly after she learned how to form letters on a page. For most of her adult life she encouraged young authors as she taught English at East Hartford High School. Retired from teaching, she now serves as Office Manager for the Drama Studio in Springfield where her play In Hiding was recently produced. Her poetry has been published in Equinox, Hello Goodbye, Peregrine, Poetic Voices Without Borders, and the online journal Survivors Review.
Honorable Mention: Best Urban Voice
FELIX #1:
Mommy please tell me what's wrong?
He sitting at home all alone, no phone
3 days now, since she's been gone
the fridge was empty all along
the pain alone is so empty, he too wished he were gone he's gone, gone, gone...
Roaming the lost & evil streets of ghetto America whatever
The endlessness of sorrow & misery seems forever But he's still waiting, growing up quick, got him tired of waiting
He's holding it together, but inside he's slowly breaking
He's walking on solid ground, but still shaken
Praying asking God "Why was Mami taken?"
Wondering was he a blessing to life or was God mistaken
Blessings come to those who wait
Forgive me God, be got tired of waiting
Look at him now the streets done raised him
He found refuge in drugs & guns and sold his soul to Satan
Deep down inside he got tired of waiting
Feeling hopeless was his best expectation
Reality's tragedy, it was him in the making
The truth in his life, he became a prisoner in a hell There was no escaping, no escaping, no escaping
He cried to America "help me," they said the poor are not a part of this Nation
Wasn't long before this kid because a grown man in realization
He overcame the struggles of waiting, he survived the wars of Satan
Now a child in a grown man cries inside
Because he's thankful for his painful creation
The true existence of his mission if for us all to envision...
That child that cried, but no one listened
Is that same man by which this poem was written "Child cried, but no one listened."
Felix lives in Holyoke and won fourth place in the Springfield Library Poetry Slam held on 4/12/08.
Home | Catalog | Databases | Branches | Kids | Teens | Calendar | Site Index