Penfield Public Library's 36 Annual TEEN POETRY CONTEST ...

Penfield Public Library’s
36 th Annual
TEEN POETRY CONTEST
Senior High Division
Winning Poems
and Honorable Mentions

PENFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARY
1985 Baird Road
Penfield, NY 14526
May 28, 2013
Congratulations to this year’s Teen Poetry contest winners! The contest was open to 6 th -
12 th graders who live in or attend school in Monroe County. This year there were 41
poems submitted in the senior high division (grades 9-12).
We are very grateful to this year’s senior high division judges who donated their time and
expertise and gave careful consideration to each and every poem. Sister Beatrice Ganley,
a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, is a published writer and poet and is retired from
teaching literature and creative writing at Nazareth College. Kathleen Wakefield is also a
published poet who has taught poetry in area schools including Eastman School of Music
and The University of Rochester.
The Teen Poetry Contest was generously sponsored by The Friends of Penfield Public
Library, who gave cash prizes to the first, second, and third place winners in both
divisions.
Thank you to everyone who entered this year and to all of the teachers, librarians, and
parents who have helped foster a love of poetry.
~Lyla Grills, young adult services librarian and the staff of Penfield Public Library

Senior High Division
First Place
Madeleine Feldman
School of the Arts

Michael and Ruth
They meet when the backs of their hands
brush together and they both start. Those working
in a glove factory often forget that hands
may go uncovered, that skin may be bare.
Michael’s hand is sacrilegiously bare, white
against the green fabric he is tugging. Ruth
is staring at the skin around his knuckles:
stretched too tight, a sign that one has grown
up too quickly. She would like to say,
My parents, too. The house is so empty now.
The air is too still. Or, Do you ever dream about the smell
of freshly sharpened pencils? Or, I can see us
in our squeezed-fist apartment in the Bronx,
light poking through the joints in our walls,
the scratching of a rat or two rats or our
fingernails clicking against the counter as we
cook the fish. I can see us cradled in the palm
of the evening, singing some song, singing Gershwin,
the song is Somebody Loves Me and you are
a sweet, salt-taffy baritone, sticking to my hands
even after I have rubbed them clean. But Ruth’s words
are caught in the whirring of her machine
and the shirring of olive fabric. They are tossed
into the pile of discarded buttons below.
Michael picks one up to fasten the pair
he is working on but his stitches are too large:
he is thinking about the bare hands of the girl
to his left, how smooth her skin was as it brushed
against his, how the spaces in between her fingers
mirror his calloused hand exactly.

Senior High Division
Second Place
Erin Graham
Webster Schroeder High School

eaching
there once was a man who lived in the clouds
he could only look up and could never look down
his eyes were the stars
and his heart was the moon
yet he longed to feel the ground.
there once was a girl who lived on the ground
she could only look down and could never look high
her hands made of earth
and her heart with a breeze
she wished to see the sky.
so she climbed her way up
and he floated down
she felt the sky as he felt the earth
and they closed their eyes together.
but she missed the brush of the wind on her cheeks
and he missed the taste of the sky on his lips
he yearned for the birds
and she wished for the trees
they cried for what was as one.
so he reached for her
as she reached for him
and they grasped as hard as the earth.
she pulled and he pushed, light as a cloud,
and they stayed in the middle together.

Senior High Division
Third Place
Ashley Lawson
School of the Arts

An Angel Trapped in a Devil’s Cage
In the cracked
mirror bolted
to the church’s pink
bathroom wall,
I questioned my reflection
like a police officer
and a suspect
in an interrogation room.
Why is your body wrapped
in a white gown
and your hair pinned up?
Makeup that conceals my face
And masks my fear
runs off onto rough fingers
across my cheeks.
My feet slide from uncomfortable
heels hidden
beneath the train
and came in contact with the cool concrete.
The draft from the rusted vents
reminded me to breathe,
although the heat that escaped
my crimson cheeks
suffocated my body.
Earth rotated a hundred times
faster than normal
like someone hit a switch
and gravity pulled me down.
As my head hit the concrete
I cried out
Lord save me!
Blood trickled across
my forehead
and down to my very palm
as I admired my empty finger.

Senior High Division
Honorable Mention
Jaymee Pride
School of the Arts

Beauty: Undefined
I will not be defined by the thickness of my thighs, the length of my hair,
Or the measurements of my bust, waist, and hips.
On the day I was born, I did not emerge from a cardboard box.
I did not come packaged with skimpy outfits, an extra pair of heels or
A beach front dream house.
I am flesh. Made up of blood and bones,
Not composed of polyvinyl compounds.
I can move my arms and run with my legs.
I can stretch my neck upwards, towards the sky,
Open my arms wide and dance in the rain.
I will never have to stay stagnant, sitting on a shelf,
And if someone out-grows me,
I can’t just be tossed in the trash.

Senior High Division
Honorable Mention
Emily Petrauskas
Our Lady of Mercy School for Young Women

“Calmness”
Stand still in the meadow;
listen to the howling wind
as it passes by your face
with its voice of calmness.
Lay motionless at the beach;
listen to the roaring waves
as they moisten the sand
with a touch of calmness.
Sit peacefully on your chair;
listen to the quiet thoughts
as they pass through your head
with their words of calmness.
Sleep deeply in your bed;
listen to the moderate dreams
as they rule your mind
with the idea of calmness.
Awake under your covers;
listen to the soft breeze
as it goes through your window
with its knowledge of calmness.

Senior High Division
Honorable Mention
Mariah Gonzalez
School of the Arts

A Love of White
I would have you as
white as the sheets
you are wrapped in,
a cocoon of innocence
cradling fair skin.
As firm as fresh now
your touch would chill me,
my bones shivering under
porcelain pigment.
Goose bumps would rise
across strong limbs, arms
supporting you as lines hold
the weight of wet laundry
on a spring afternoon.
Your voice would be as thick
as cream in fresh coffee –
waking me early morning,
and heating my soul
like a cup of warmed
milk on a cold winter night.
Noise would cease,
the silence of snow
falling in the evening,
shallow breathing coating
windows in a lattice fog,
as tired eyes begin to close.

Senior High Division
Honorable Mention
Angela Rollins
School of the Arts

Reunited
Darkness gathers like dust along the shelf.
Your fingers are dry as sand, scrubbing
dinner’s dishes in the sink.
From behind the wall,
I hear you hum three distinct rhythms.
They are lullabies, lost in a child’s daydream.
I am silent – a mouse
in my own skin.
Somewhere,
hearts shatter like broken vases,
but here thoughts remain imprisoned
to the tongue.
You belong to a world of memory,
where my dreams take and shape you.
Like a loose tooth, I lost you long ago.
And yet, if my frozen hands reached,
I could touch your solid form.
The fantasy has dissolved into reality,
and I am haunted.
Blind, you whistle another melody
and I retire to bed,
dreaming that you understood.
It is far too late.

Senior High Division
Honorable Mention
Austin Hammond
School of the Arts

Violent Sundays
Cracking an egg,
Watching it drip from the shell,
Preparing it to be whisked.
Beaten repeatedly until it flows like syrup.
Pouring it on a pan, and heating it slowly.
The temperature increases and you can smell it now.
Its essence being burned on a blacktop stove.
Being lifted for a moment of relief,
Then being smacked back down.
Face first like a horribly bad dream.
Crispy now you slide it off the pan
Onto a green ceramic plate,
Now hot from the sunshine from outside.
The dish,
Spending its time on a counter,
Next to the spinning blades
And the intense heat coils.
Drop your bread in and watch it char.
Fill your filter with freshly ground beans,
And pour boiling water over them,
Burning the flavor out.
People pick the elders,
Pack them tightly together.
Pick on up and slide it in half.
Stab it against a harpoon like structure
And twist and turn it until you drain it of its blood.
Serve your massacre to your family,
Find joy in cutting and impaling your meal.
Taste its contents and savor its sweet.
What does it matter anyway?
It’s just another Sunday breakfast.