It's National Poetry Month and we want to introduce you to the some very talented teen writers this month.
This year's 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards recognized 16 high school seniors who received the program’s highest national honor, the Gold Medal Portfolio, which includes a $10,000 scholarship.
Throughout April, we will showcase a poem from this year's writing portfolio winners. This week, we are celebrating the work of Sydni Wells, age 17 (Miami, FL) and Allison Jiang, age 17 (Holmdel, NJ).
L-R: Sydni Wells, Allison Jiang
Find out more about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and LinkedIn. And don't forget to use #GoldKey!
"Cataracts," by Sydni Wells
eyes are the window to the soul, but mirrors
—i have discovered—
are prisons of the mind.
they are multi-dimensional
jagged-edge cages
of beauty,
of security,
of self,
of every person we’ve tried to be,
wanted to become, waited to turn into.
mirrors are contained weapons
whose greatest offense
is their presence;
the mounting pressure of knowing—
knowing it is there,
it is calling
calling
knowing
every sense of self
you shed like carefully constructed snake skins:
versions of yourself that have grown old, cracked,
dried out and died,
on that bathroom floor.
---
"Olivia Moon" by Allison Jiang
Olivia Moon.
Olivia Moon is the seagull in all the guided meditation audiotapes, sitting on the mast that
flies away at the end;
Olivia Moon is a olive-skinned almond-eyed hurricane in a world of crayon color labels like cerulean blue and goldenrod.
People feel like they can ask her things like
where do you get your confidence? to which she will toss her hair;
Olivia Moon is physically unable to hear questions that are impossible to answer.
Olivia Moon was sent here from the sky gods,
born from a smoking crater. She thinks she is the one who will start the new world order when really
her parents the sky gods were half-joking.
Olivia Moon is always joking;
people (the same people from before!) say that this will lead to problems.
She is an orb of flickering blue light
that sometimes goes out but only for a second;
she wears lipstick that looks like magic in the mirror but
is a little washed out on camera.
Olivia Moon is the eye for imbalance,
looking out through a sepia filter and
tasting the world.
