REGIONAL WINNERS 2008-2009

The Wayward Tide of Eternity: A Nocturnal Portrait

Blessed ever be the stillness the heartbeats of sleep
    While the marrow of man eddies drunkenly
Around riven remembrances that titter and weep-
    Rejoice in the shanty of the soul lithely.
Three winks the temporal wavelength the fabric of dreams
    That pass in the course of a stygian trice
Where in haste a will-less reverie reams and reams
    Of quaint affairs or of phantasms of vice.

         The bells knell yaks (it must be) twelve.
         The bells knell lax (it must be) two.
         -Alo alass, aladdin amobus!
         -Behold, begog, bacchus, baemon!

The blitz of mislaid memory caterwauls
    Then soughs in the mildew meadow of the brain
Softly, sweetly, still slumbering absolute in the dun nightfall-
    What is time but immaterial and vain
When it flutters in the fitful breeze of absurdity?
Joseph Taylor Randolph, OH, Black River High School

Two Sleep

Droplets of oyster's flesh lacing the black velvet sky
dangled loose from granite
shoulders and spine.
The angel of death waits on her sun-bleached steed,
sickled and wreathing…

Her downy form under draped dress.
Inferno in, that ivory skin, gleaming.
Dreaming, tranquil
beneath bundled amethyst.

Resting her head in my lap, finger's tips tracing on the small of her back.

Beneath wings,
black and featherless.
Beside an ocean
of flowers, grayscale and breathless
between two,
entwined
in the fading darkness.

Sound asleep with a sea of sunflowers, with magic, with machines, with the lamplight of
a rising sun in that heady, shadowed room.
Rouge-auburn hair strewn, about her shoulders in peaceful dream and disarray.
David Alexander Beame, WA, University Preparatory Academy

Jim Harrison, (3)

I’ve always hated the snow.  Michigan boy, why am I where you
should be?  We’ve cut ourselves off from lifelines, undid the rope,
strand by strand, and watched Yesenin’s body collapse like
the way my suitcase slammed shut after I first locked
my bedroom and kissed the decorated door
goodbye with my finger tips.  You grunt and I understand that we
have to take the body out to the lobby.  You grab him at the legs
not wincing at the smell of his soiled pants and I am too weak to
pick up his pinky.  I look for where Yesenin got the blood to write
his last words.  Did he cut his finger?  His chest? Or stab into his pants,
the real heart of men?  You start to drag his body without me, his head
slightly bouncing Yes.  And I think of all the questions that might have answered.
We push his body down the stairs and gravity works like it did the night he tied his
noose.  In the lobby we replace the rope with a chain and hang Yesenin from a chandelier
to illuminate for all, that final question.
Rana Tahir, MI, Interlochen Arts Academy

Surrender

amber knees on colorless carpet
rest in tacit resignation;
the dusty yellow filters through silence.
for is not the breath mute?
but the heart, it sings:
unlocked love thus unsheathed
communicates a soundless clamor,
transcending the transience that is.
so the ephemeral, surpassed,
flutters and fades, and death yields.
celebrate, and merit eternity.
speak stillness into the vulnerable;
open blind minds, whose plagues
foment the temporal.
with cryptic quietude proceed.
and rightly so,
for that which knows truth understands.
at last bowing knees rise;
with compliant palms uncurled,
stillness splits.
Ari Mason, CT, Glastonbury High School

The Red Ribbon

The red ribbon twists
Binding the feet
Of the twittering, tottering old Chinese ladies.
It grows vines
Entwining ballerinas, rooting them in place.
The masqueraders’ parasols twirl, hiding bent and hidden hearts
Forming wilting flower arrangements,
Perfect centerpieces for afternoon tea.
Their feet trail, carving a deep red river,
Where boulders can tumble free-fall
Into the rushing of a hundred bulls
Charging with their horns from all sides
To the rift of that lone valley,
Their black iron hooves cracking
The moon’s celadon glaze
In a race staining the cloth of our picnic table
With small slashes that emit the echoing waves
Of bleeding paper cuts.
Carissa Ratanaphanyarat, CA, Gunn High School

subways of New York

was always taught that
the individual has weight
is something meaningful: a tangible concept
to hold and gauge in the palm
all parts equal to the sum: all people equal to the masses
but then – what are these underground iron planes?
that meldmoldweld all spaces and anti-spaces
into one sweetly-smooth mass called
the subway.

the cities that lie on plates of earth
contain diagrams of lines
superimposed: all units of stars singularly confined
in bricks of rectangles and squares
there is a vision, somewhere, prophesizing
one day the stars will lift up tightly-locked windows of the buildings and
jump
splitting planes of sharp air, shattering smooth images of
sweetly tipping moon and clouds to

hang

bare legs swinging in the sky.

Wendy Chen, MA, Acton-Boxborough Regional High School

All Other Certified Regional Winners from the

Spring Summer 2009 Contest

Lay Kodama , OH , Upper Arlington HS

Carl Davis Phillips , NJ , Lakeland Reg HS

Allister Nelson, VA , Jefferson HS for Science & Technology

Kiara Mae Flint Whitney, CO, Loveland HS

Nai Liu , MI , Troy HS

David Campbell, AZ, Horizon HS

Ji-heuk (John) Kim, MS , Oak Grove

Drew Sinha, OH , William Mason HS

Sylena Tanner, PA , Pennsbury HS East

Jeffrey Yoon, NY, Jericho Senior HS

Liana Nicklaus , IL , Illinois Math & Science Academy

Sarah Cocuzzo, MA, Needham HS

Damiana McGraw, MO , Francis Howell Central HS

Chloe Benson , AZ , Red Mountain HS

Jenni Ashcroft, MO , Smithville HS

Christina Heinzen, MN, Burnsville Senior HS

Megan Cotter, IA, Waverly-Shell Rock HS

Nikki Lewis, IL, Mahomet-Seymour HS

Leah Sahmlian, VA, Oakton HS

Liana Bandziulis, CA , Paraclete HS

Rachel Vanderbeek, NV, Churchchill County HS

Yeon Hui Kang, AL , Brewbaker Technology Magnet HS

Debbie Dickinson, TX , Lamar Consolidated HS

Jalene Herron , AK , Bethel Regional HS

Ninoshka N. Perez, VA, Stonewall Jackson HS

Lizabeth Sidlov , NJ , Pompton Lakes HS

Jayme Morrison, TX, John Paul Stevens HS

Hailee McElroy , IN , Heritage Christian School

Joshua Zimmer, NJ, Roxbury HS

Cheri Philpot, TX, Rowlett HS

Cody Canon, IL, Homewood-Flossmoor HS

Ryan A. Etienne, LA, East St. John HS

Jacob Arluck, NY, Minisink Valley HS

Shelley Picot, VA, Edison HS

Joseph Contreras, TX, Antonian College Prep HS

Yamini Nabar , NJ , The Pingry School

Rosa Gandler, NY, Palham Memorial HS

Alicia Ruth Baldelli, NC, Millbrook HS

Hannah Dierling, OH, Hilliard Darby HS

Romir Chaudhuri, NJ , Randolph HS

Eleanor Ellis, OR, South Salem HS

Brittany Morley, IN, Homeschool

Sierra Smith, AZ, Horizon HS

Jesse Boggis, MA, Hopkinton HS

Caitlyn Schumaker, WA , Redmond HS

Luka Glinsky, PA , Homeschool

Alyssa Kervin, NH, Conant HS

Lisa Cheung, CT, Mark T. Sheehan HS

Lauren Poss, MT, Fergus HS

John Adam White, GA, Central Gwinnett HS

Laura Toperzer, MN, Hutchinson HS

Taylor Bush, TX, The Hockaday School

Kaitlin A. McCully, MD, Albert Einstein HS

Joanne Ko, CA, Mission HS

Monica Grabijas, IL, Maine South High School

Judy Wu, TX, Bellaire HS

Adam Samson, NY, Spackenkill HS

Miranda Ashlyn Babb , MO , ABeka Academy

Lisa Ann Sinks, NC, Seventy-First HS

Meghan Woolley, CT, Coginchaung Regional HS

Myles Teasley, CA , Harvard-Westlake

Caitlin Kaldany, NJ, Eastern HS

Nadya Primak , MN , John Marshall HS

Hanna Rajabi, MA, Waldorf HS of Mass Bay

Jacqueline Fraca, MA, Medway HS

Samantha Bollman, NJ, Voorhees HS

Scott Alexander Streitfeld, CA, Nigual HS

Melanie Tolomeo, NJ, Passaic Valley HS

Kira Withrow, CO , Glenwood Springs HS

Rebecca Lee, CA, Claremont HS

Katrina Wiecek, IL, Huntley HS

Rob Standley , AZ , Pusch Ridge Christian Academy

Matisse Hack, VT, Thetford Academy

Kayley Freshman-Caffrey, WA , Cascade Senior HS

Cung Tran , MA , O’Bryant School of Mathematics & Science

Nicholas Nussen, OH, Green HS

Maiying Yongkao Her, CA, Bolsa Grande HS

Camille Coppolla, MA, Longmeadow

Laura Yu, CA, Galileo HS

Nicole Padula, NJ, Park Ridge HS

Keely Bakken, NV , Faith Lutheran HS

Gabriela Dobkin, NJ, Bruriah HS

Michelle Lam, NJ, Parsippany Hills HS

Emily Toffol, AZ, Desert Mountain HS

Jodi Berkley, IN, Jefferson HS

Maggie Lin, VA, Oakton HS

Inesse Day Bueneman , SC , Hilton Head Island HS

Esther Lho, NC, East Chapel Hill HS

Fall - Winter 2008 

FIRST PLACE WINNER

Now He’s Eating the Dollar

 

for Orkief, who did it to his lunch money

 

No matter how you looked at it, torn is torn, yet--

how to explain. The shreds didn't exactly flutter achingly

to the ground, catching the sunlight all the while

like some skeins of flying fish; afterwards,

 

there was to be no full moon hanging above the Italian rooftops

like a note of music following your green coup,

no bark uncurling itself from the noses of trees and falling

in scrolls about your feet. Who would shear the bark

 

as from some horny, wooden sheep, anyway?

No, there was no post-coital cigarette after hours

of marionetting in a hotel with soundproof walls.

If you did things impulsively, then that was okay,

fine, even. The sun still set

 

like a tasty piece of roadkill on the windshield.

Pebbles still winked at you, sledgehammers still hurt.

Everything was fine, and the young man, having burned

his fortune, could retire contentedly. And the “meaning”

 

was crawling away already while we spoke it so that we had to stare

after it leaving its trail on the grass

like somewhere water has just run.

Qing Zhang, NJ , Tenafly High School

SECOND PLACE WINNERS

Brazen

 

It would be brazen of me to announce that

I have finally and completely reached a decision

on the color lukewarm chartreuse.

 

Lukewarm chartreuse reminds me (and probably you)

of Russia, among other things like Wednesday 2 P.M.

or even the one time you sat alone, cried, and finally thought

of pickles— an image which successfully ruined

the solemnity you had worked so hard to produce.

 

It's brazen though, really.

 

David Martorana, HI, Iolani School

Life as the City

 

The day wraps around itself - graying petals raise the walls of a secret garden

around the sun, baring their water-plump underbellies to the world. 

The sky tips back in tremors of laughter, water draining

from its eaves, spreading the city over a lightless sky and dousing it in shades of gray.

A puddle of silver satin sheets squirms beneath me.  Knees rolled

into my chest, arms draped around them, my eyes averted past the tear-

stained windows.  A tube of beer-battered light tunnels from the streetlamp,

the edges siphoned away, leaving a haze where warmth meets damp night. 

 

The sheets follow my feet to the floor -- they don't make it

past the bedroom.  A bellow of thunder greets my hand at the front door. 

Night and rain replace my skin in folds.  I am the city. 

I taste the perspiration fill my lungs, feel thousands of lights embed themselves

in my body, hear rippling voices tuck the kids away from the storm. 

The cool rain drips through thick fingers

of tar into my veins, and my heart beats erratically, in sync with a million others.

 

Tangerine wicker claws at the back of my legs, and I'm drawn back

away from the world.  The wicker chair is new, not broken in yet - like this Minneapolis

life.  It needs to be tested, sculpted, softened.  A private smile

creeps out into the city; and I let the people do the breathing for me.

Allison Malecha, MN, The Blake School

THIRD PLACE WINNER

Memoir of a Wannabe American Troubadour

Greyhound stationways on the out out skirts of town. Streets littered with long skirts, short skirts, torn skirts: the souvenirs and remnants of days that I don't remember--what is memory anyway?--Nothing if not a false sense.

(Amphetamine fueled crosscountrydaze)

Etching

          "Madness"

                         on the green wall

                                                  of the bathroom stall

                                                                                 with a ballpoint cap (sharpened with teeth)

Gonorrhea on the sink,

carpet burn branding poetry

into my personified flesh.

The tongue to the roof of my mouth

forming

the hope

of a generation.

"I'll speak it and breathe it."

Katharine Derrick, AZ, BASIS Tucson

THIRD PLACE WINNER

This is Poetry

The sharp, sanguine tang that gushes out

from the raspberries you rapaciously masticate,

the paint that stains your lips and

dribbles down your chin in a crimson pink torrent. This is

love.

The enclave of Apis Mellifera Linnaeus and their utopian honeycomb,

which dangles perilously from the gnarled fingertip of the oaken willow,

which shudders with every baby’s breath of sighing wind

directly above a scarlet-marinated face, your own. This is

beauty.

The bashful glimpse of the melted margarine Sol,

whose radiant luminosity severs holes through the whispering olive foliage

and fabricates a kaleidoscope of rainbow hues that pirouette and plié

amongst the ascending jessamine and spidery brown lichen. This is

peace.

All these things, woven as one; ripe ruby raspberries, pregnant with delectable juice

that quenches your Saharan thirst entice the honeybee coven whose hexagonal abode

clutches for purchase to an old man’s thumb and dangles right over you as shards of

sunshine glass slice through the summertime air and set the universe on fire. This is

poetry.

Shannon Markiewicz, WI, Bay Port High School

THIRD PLACE WINNER

Gutter Duty

 

I’m not gifted with foresight to determine, in some great act of jurisprudence

Whether that earth is yours, mine, ours.

It's such a shame Epimetheus saw not the two of us,

Draped in bright yellow raincoats that ran gray in torrential rain,

As we raised our voices above thunder over who would clear the gutter.

 

In waters that ran black with murky darkness

I thought I saw a flash of silver, a charm from childhood.

But you, you saw the concrete box that framed the urban river

And commented on how it reeks with a delicate sort of hauteur.

 

In the type of gust that forces a hand on your head to keep your hat from lifting off,

We're muttering our hate of Spring and feverishly scratching at

Clumps of natural pollution, those baby green leaves,

To liberate the rain river snake.

 

The two of us are urban tadpoles, I think;

We're swimming in a pool of Oceanids, as if

Oceanus and Tethys really did fill the world with their love.

It makes me a cynic to push the blasted leaves aside and watch the water flee.

I was hydraulic.

Jenny Fan, TX, Bellaire High School

HONORABLE MENTIONS

in random order

Precinct - Timothy Anderson, TX, Franklin High School

Minuit - Jessica Laurent, FL, Bartram Trail High School

untitled - Andrew Occiano, CA, Westview High School

A Grand Stage – Ryan Collins, IN Ben Davis High School

Lights of Amber – Samantha Giehll. WI, Memorial High School

Helix – Stephanie Vecellio, CT, Lyman Hall High School

dreams – Elizabeth Chin, CA, Mira Loma High School

Water Works – Eric Saulsbury, TX, Texarkana

God’s Sun – Lanly Le, AZ, Hamilton High School

Pareidolia – Olivia Waring, NJ, Villa Walsh Academy

Apology – Emma Stanford, WA, Anacortes High School

Inner-City Kid – Eleanor Ellis, OR, South Salem High School

naïve – Sean Fujimori, NH, Phillips Exeter Academy

A Hedgeside Rebellion – Jeff Fenoli, WA, Juanita High School

Jerusalem of Aureate – Faraz Yashar, FL , Seminole High School

All of the poems contained inside this anthology are absolutely fabulous.

In our opinion, on any given day any one of them could be an Honorable Mention.

ALL OTHER CERTIFIED REGIONAL WINNERS

Katelyn Bodwell , FL , Dreyfoos School of the Arts

Evangelos Razis , NY , Farmingdale High School

Allison Cavanaugh, PA, Avon Grove High School

Connie Shang, CA, Saratoga High School

Christina Maycann, TN, Center for Creative Arts

Lauryn Wright , VA , Princess Anne High School

Vanessa Diaz, CA, Maywood Academy High School

Stephanie Bardales, FL, Cypress Bay High School

Stephanie Reyes, FL, School for Advanced Studies

Anna Mae Elizabeth Robinson, VA, West End Christian School

Casey Bacci, MD, Decatur High School

Connie Selden, DC, Bishop McNamara High School

Tyler Lee Cox, FL, East Ridge High School

Isabella Watts, CA, Saint Paul High School

Jennifer Thompson, OR, Newberg High School

Charlotte Tregelles, NJ, Northern Highlands Regional High School

Audrey Li, NJ, The Pingry School

Cierra Goldstein, CA , Stellar Secondary Charter High School

Gema Mora , FL , Miami Senior High School

Donald Browner, MD, Clarksburg High School

Lindsey Mitchell , GA , McIntosh High School

Crystal Cordero, NJ, Monroe Township High School

Christine Rhoades, IN, New Albany High School

erika higgins, FL, Mount Dora High School

Emily Horodko, MI, Fraser High School

Robyn Wright, IL, Saint Charles North High School

Josh Harm, IL, Oak Forest High School

Lindsay Schleifer, VA, Loudoun Valley High School

Warda Nawaz, CA , Mira Loma High School

Christina Scott, OH, South Webster High School

Jessica Weinstein, PA, MaST Community Charter School

Megan Cain, MI, Swartz Creek High School

Vy-Vy Dang-Tran, CA, Mission Viejo High School

Benjamin Cleveland, VA, Hanover High School

Dashell Laryea, VA , Flint Hill School

Anthony Tran VA, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Elizabeth James, IN, Heritage Christian

Rachel Lytton, OR, South Eugene High School

Chelsea Ringquist, IL, Northside College Preparatory High School

Jonathan Wolf, OH, Homeschooled

Heaven Lindsey-Burtch , CA , Turlock High School

Matt Floyd, MO, Clearwater R1

Garrin Martinez , CO , East High School

Genevieve Ruiz, CA, La Puente High School

Katie Chase, WA, Southridge High

Faith Blocker, AL, Pelham High School

Elizabeth Klein, MI, Pewamo-Westphalia High School

Lauren Osman, OH, Troy High School

Anthony Douglas, MD, Brookville

Adela Wu, CA, Polytechnic School

Sarah Hannah, CO, Castle View High School

Kim Miller, CT, Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts

Kristofer O. Von Ahnen, IL, Loyola Academy

Rachel Huth, OH, North Royalton High School

Alejandro Bolivar, PR, Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola

Jane Carper, MA, Academy of the Pacific Rim

Julie Boerner, NY , Greece Arcadia

Leah Shamlian, VA, Oakton High School

Dawn Bennett , TX , John Horn High School

Christine Suk, CA, Andrews Osborne Academy

Kiersten Gazelka, MN, Willmar Senior High School

Polina Burmina, NY, James Madison High School

Angela Cosentino, AZ, Tempe Preparatory Academy

Laura Gibbon, TX, Azle High School

Isaac Heyman, OH, Monroeville High School

Johanna Pugsley, MN, Pugsley Homeschool

Lanly Le, AZ, Hamilton High School

Jason Santos, CA, Westview High School

Tina Hanae Miller, FL, Ransom Everglades

Mirin Fader, CA, LACES

Sarah Elshafie, CA, Newbury Park High School

Kelicia Phelps, NC, Mount Tabor High School

Lily Lai, IL, Lane Tech High School

Maria Regina Lopez, AL, John Carroll High School