2007 Winners | The America Library of Poetry

2007 Student Poetry Contest

Division Winners

Division I
(grades 3-5)

The Park
by Samantha Baloga

The sun is setting
Colors of magenta
Periwinkle
Violet
And bright yellow
Like an artist's painting
I stare for hours
Three little girls play tag
A puppy alongside of them
I hear laughter
As they call, "Molly!"
The pond is as clear
As the day's light sky
An elderly couple walk by
Hand-in-hand
Laughing at memories
They once shared

I Am Free
by Emily Sickles

The presence of dew
On the daffodil
The sky and I
Lay silent and still
The sunlight weaved
Between the trees
Tiptoed outside
The gentle breeze
The petals shed
And blanket the ground
An eagle soars
At the speed of sound
The robin on
The apple tree
And me
I am free

Peace
by Gabriella Elfezouaty

While I walk on
The shore of the beach ...
I wonder
What life could be
Out there in the sea
While the soles of my feet
Are tickled
By the tides
Each footstep wakes me up
To the beautiful ocean song
That calls me to it
With the perfect sunset
I am filled with joy
I find myself sitting on the sand
Watching the sun's last rays
Sink below the horizon

Division II
(grades 6-7)

Dreamer
by Kendall Gedeon

The crippled boy who's rejected by all
He wants to become the next star of baseball
He knows that he can't, because he will fall
He's a dreamer
The little girl who will soon say goodbye
Knows she has cancer, and tries not to cry
But still she wishes on stars passing by
She's a dreamer
The mother who can't support her child
Has four jobs, but the pay is mild
Still each day she laughed and smiled
She's a dreamer
The father of two, whose wife has just died
Cannot bear the death of his bride
Still he lives on with hope and pride
He's a dreamer
The person who willed their ambitions to come true
Who fantasizes, prays, and wishes too
The person who has a different worldview
We're all dreamers

Into the Rain
by Elizabeth Gaa

I am the child of the broken, the forgotten, forsaken
I live in the rut of desperation, alone in this wide, wide, world
With no one to love, no one to hold
And the rain comes down like the tears of all who have ever lived
Who have ever loved
The rain comes down in buckets, but it wasn't always rain
The sun once shone over me, a small child of the Ukraine
I had a family, a place to shelter me from the pouring rain; a home
All hope veiled by the rain; now I sit, sorrowful, alone
And the rain comes down like the tears of all who have ever lived
Who have ever loved
The rain comes down in buckets

Cherry Blossoms
by Kaela Helmbold

Cherry blossoms fade
Pink tears falling off gently
Splashing on the grass

Division III
(grades 8-9)

The White Dragon
by Devin Harris

A thousand radiant white lights
Each one a shining scale
Lay upon its body
Like a suit of sparkling mail
A row of gleaming diamond spikes
Bristle on its tail
Its wings are spun with pure moonlight
Each one a frosted sail
An agile creature of the air
Its body slim and lithe
Its fangs are ivory daggers
Each claw, a crystal scythe
It breathes a cloud of milk-white flames
Into the pitch-black night
And soars across the starry skies
A captivating sight

Split 6
by Reba Shields

How to explain the woes of a child
Who must talk to herself everyday
To compensate all of the people
Who invade and conquer her mind
There are five other selves behind her
And each gets their own moment to shine
When sharing a body with six
It's like a full house with no room to breathe
The worst part of all is the truth
She knows and created each one
But a game went wrong and now she goes on
In a shell of six different personas
Three boys and three girls make up herself
Each one the opposite of another
The twins, the actor, the friend, cousin and shadow
All make up the one little girl
"It's easier than thought," she says to me
It's like we all live in the same world
The twins know the actor; the actor, the shadow
And there is no room for alone

Remembering
by Victoria Barker

They sit motionless
Pieces of their silver hair sparkle in the light
The gray bonnets are tied around their heads
As if to cover the painful memories that still ring clear in their minds
Occasionally the rocking chair squeaks, but neither one seems to notice
Nothing can break them from this trance
They are too busy remembering how great everything was
Horrific scenes race through their minds
It's hard to forget all the red flashing lights
On that rainy Christmas Eve
As the sun begins to set over the hill, they get up
It will be time for supper soon

Division IV
(grades 10-12)

Sonnet For Everyday People
by Steven Abel

The business world, it sits atop its throne
And all those left in holes below look up
With callused hands and feet scraped down to bone
They envy those who drink from Greed's Gold Cup
Please recognize what businessmen produce
In minds of men, they craft want into need
And still we all hold on to this abuse
Despite the Wars for Oil that they let bleed
I'm not a demographic; I am real
I feel for farmer's crops and doctor's drugs
While homeless women pray for their next meal
A businessman decides on Persian rugs
We idolize the rich and their champagne
And find the miracles of life mundane

Warriors of Ruin
by Adam Pliskin

And we roll on
Past the drums that beat us back to the cacophony of our youth
Down the wistful hills of yesterday
The winding roads that carve
The fragile outline of meandering memories
To the time-torn, decaying docks
Where ghosts stare into the tide of the past
Imparting their arcane knowledge on the waves
To the horizon line
The place where sun tastes ocean's salty breath upon its lips
And then bows its ancient head below the sullen sea
Where we cast our forgotten dreams like glassy stones
Never to rise again
And we roll on along the path of reckless nostalgia
Warriors of ruin

Without
by Pamela Lé Sant

Gone is the music which drove me
The tune, lost on the wind's breath
Misused, mislaid, misplaced
Flown are the notes that conducted the rhythms
The song danced so easily with different beats
Marches of the long dull days
Jazz rips during wanton nights
The soothing sonnets and sleepy lullabies of brandies and breakfasts
A strayed strain of abandoned love
Left is only emptiness
No ruined harmonies or unfinished opuses
But motifs, no longer heard, only remembered
In a prison of silence