3rd to 5th Grade PoemsFirst Place by Madison Arrowood 4th Grade Braydon I felt it when hewas first in my arms withhis blue eyes looking at me When he was crawling and said his first wordthe sound of his voice was like the chirping of birds He just started walking and he came to me his embrace was like a blanket over me He has gotten older became strong and tough but we will always have each other and he will always by my little brother. Second Place by Gabriel Morris 4th Grade The Smiling Goat I am a jolly goat and my horns reflect the sun The bees are buzzing over the flowers as I graze over the grass the bushes sway happily in the sun I walk to the shed for a nap Then I see people coming toward me There is a boy with them tottering towards me in overalls He comes to me and he pets me as gently as a butterfly and he plays He is happy He stays And he plays ln the morning dew When I awake, I am happy I wait for the boy Nothing The boy does not appear There is no one to stay and play I graze and nap Then a noise rings in the air A familiar laugh A happy noise It is the boy He comes and plays We are joyful Third Place by Nabeeha Salahuddin 5th Grade When Winter is Here By the warm fire, In sweaters and blankets. In their hands are hot chocolate, With white mini marshmallows and candy canes. Outside, snow gracefully falls, Upon the snowy hills. Beyond the houses and into the forest, In a cave, a bear family hibernates for the winter. Past the snowy mountains, Down the children go, as they sled down the hill. Near the children, girls ice skate, On the frozen pond. At the kitchen mothers and daughters bake cookies, For their families and friends. Under the snow is the driveway, Outside, dads shoveling the heavy layers of snow. Underneath is the brown fur of the Mountain hares, Outside is the warm, white fur of these camouflaged creatures. At the door carolers sing festive songs, To bring joy to the neighborhood. After a long day of winter fun, Inside the families go, to cozy up in their heated homes. Honorable Mention Kate Hill 5th Grade A Winter Storm
The Winter Storm How glorious the winter storm is The snow hits the earth it feels as if everything has lifted As I walk through the frosty forest I hear trees talking to me Birds sit perched on An icy oak tree with sparkling eyes Deer stand quietly and watch As I wade through the winter storm The earth is a clean sheet of snow I feel the cold air brush against my face As I come to a clearing, stand in the middle and look up That’s when I feel a sudden sense of joy! People's Choice by Andre Lodico 4th Grade Magical Books
Oh, the knowledge!! Oh, the learning!! Oh, the books!! Learn! Learning is to have knowledge Read! Non fiction is information Fiction will bring you to other worlds like a magical field Oh, the field has flowers of all sorts! The grass is swaying back and forth beneath your feet You just want to lay down You do Your eyes just start to get heavy, Heavier They close. Now, you are asleep in another magical world. 6th to 8th Grade PoemsFirst Place by Eva Schneider 6th Grade Joy of an Owlet
small white owlet young lifting her delicate, feather-laced wings to try again, to reach the sky many times before the owlet has stumbled failing day after day the ground looks far and the sky farther but a seed of hope rests in the tiny gently beating heart of an owlet a push of her legs off she begins this could be the day she reaches the sky a biting wind and the owlet has lost balance the familiar tumbling spin begins but the gust of air catches her in the delicate creases of her wintery-white wings it lifts her high, and she soars slowly, naturally, her wings pump to an invisible rhythm a song from heaven only she can hear great joy fills her heart for joy is to fail a million times over and then, just once, succeed. Second Place by Andrew Stumm 8th Grade The Five Senses
Third Place by Elle Cooper 7th Grade The Empty Street My bare feet kiss the pavement As I run down the cracked road, My little brother’s quick footsteps Slapping the gravel behind me. All the blue has dripped from the sky, Replaced with paint brush strokes Of blushing pink and soft gold. The air around us stands quiet and still, No breeze to brush away the sweat That drips down both of our foreheads. Earlier, I said I would race him to the end Of the street, to the faded red stop sign No cars ever bothered to slow down for. His calloused fingertips reach ahead of me now To graze the sign as he laughs triumphantly. The pitiless laugh of a champion Who has earned his golden crown. Honorable Mention by Aivery Pena 8th Grade The Joyful Mask
Joy is best defined as a feeling of great pleasure and happiness But what if that feeling is just a mask to hide the real pain someone is actually feeling On some days they might feel joy but others may not, and I question what it really is to me It is the feeling of knowing that I am able to breathe? The thought of knowing people love me? May I know what the real meaning of joy is to me? I hide behind a mask of joy because I want to make others happy But that sacrifices me to feel pain instead They may seem like I am fine, sometimes I am but I contemplate what others see or think of me Seeing the emotion of happiness gives me joy to see that others are happy I give and spread that joy to others for a reason Seeing them happy Seeing that they are good Seeing that they have a reason to feel good A reason to laugh A reason to smile A reason to feel joyful I may be sacrificing my own joy to make others smile, but that is the blessing that was given to me The feeling of knowing others are joyful running through my veins give me ecstasy and a reason to smile The pain may sting for a little, but that joy will be a great reason to feel a forever feeling I do not exactly define joy as happiness, but as a blessing to feel a great emotion inside and to spread it to others. People's Choice by E.K. Baer 6th Grade Drawing Hearts with a Pink Flashlight It was 7:30, Nearly midnight dark... It was cold and the wind picked Up and made my bones rattle... It was Valentine’s Day... And there I was, Standing across from a hospital, With a pink flashlight in my trembling hand... Drawing hearts in the air For the kids who were waving their lights at me From the inside of their hospital windows. Shouts of affection, warmth, and love Twirled through the air. Little lights went on, one by one... Here! There! And over there! Do you see them? Can you feel them? There I stood, Strengthening my grasp of my pink flashlight, Sending even more love To all the lights in the distance... Wondering who was holding them And why they were there. My pink flashlight clinked with My valentine’s, And together we drew a heart In the late evening air ... And that was joy. 9th to 12th Grade PoemsFirst Place by Layla Wheelon 11th Grade A Love Letter, Decomposing
If this poem were encrypted entirely in Flower language, if I could deceive God with the beauty of his own bloom, I would confess that this tender, unnurtured future I imagine takes the shape of a woman. Curled in the cavity of my chest as only a silhouette until I pull her light up against my heart, between my breasts, to examine her closer. Sometimes she is sunny and I deliver her roadside weeds as an offering, as that lamb slaughtered, its blood slicked over my bedroom door -- a plea, let Him pass. Sometimes she wails when I tuck her away under the recesses of muscle, deep within marrow, so I give her a honeysuckle blossom to tuck between tongue and teeth. To hold her over until I can look at her again. I tell my family I don’t want to marry. Don’t say I equate marriage with a hairy arm pressed to my rib cage, heat and soiled sheets. If this poem had more guts, if l planned to run it under faucet and bury its pulp beneath the oak, I would pencil in the ghost of that girl I want to hold. Maybe she can French braid, weave intricacy into limp strands. Maybe wears that crop top with a rainbow on each nipple. Or maybe she drapes herself in jasmine, in shy white blossoms that yellow too fast. If this poem were not the silent beckoning of chemical-laced scents and neon pistil, if it couldn’t make its way from roots to stigma, to God, my parents, to the sister I am not allowed to tell, If solely secret, I would open my throat and pull her out by the hands. Apologize for my messy insides with forehead pressed to her cheek. I want her arms coiled around me like vines. I want to sit contented on a morning where the slow drift of dust is the only marker of time, But this poem is not bold enough to bear testament to that longing. It is merely pinpoint pricks of petals against linoleum, just rose thorns embedded in this pair of palms that will not hold another. Sentences that fall flat. This poem garbles its syllables and coughs out earth instead, bent stems and blanched veiny roots. Nothing of substance, so I am left to present her with a meager sprig of lavender. Ground up, crammed into one of those cheap perfume bottles. I know that even encoded, this bouquet I send will decay soon, these words turned to frail color-leeched things. But in the meantime, I am content to sit by her side, knees knocking together, and watch. Marvel as the beauty fades. Second Place by Nathan Phuong 11th Grade Kayaking: A Whale of an Adventure It is good to get on the water, Alaskan swells slopping onto my forearms. I shell the water away with an arm’s reach of paddle, the crests snap through the length of my kayak like crumbling glaciers. It is best to trail in the tense bull kelp while the humpback whale huffs half-breaths and yawns in even smaller fish --- lops leathery tail like a blooded battle-banner overhead. The beast brushes wails into the cavities of my heart, intoning raw acoustics into the chambers there. Tides run from the whale’s jaw, and with them seep my week’s worries, plasma to be folded in the tides and baked on some distant, sultry shore. Like ravens of the sea, gulls bob and clap wings over fish quickened to the surface by the wallowing whale below. The tufted puffin chases his troops, as the passing kingfisher swoops disdainful wings overhead. Cormorants jut bright beaks against slow rollers and low light. Gray sky tamps down around my droplet-flecked jacket, as spotted seals moan at the fat-hungry cold of the rising surf. Unwillingly, I make swift strokes shoreward, but farther out the whale continues his feeding. Gruff breakers lather his sides, but he does not flee the surface. Instead, it is only my eyes that sting from the salt-spray while whitecaps run streaming off the whale’s back. Third Place by Caroline Conway 11th Grade Something That Stands
Years later, her hands trace the air, fingering orders come and gone, lost in muscle memory. She’s back behind the scooping counter, spoon in hand, digging into a vat of rainbow sherbet, dropping a nearly perfect sphere into a cone crowned with chocolate. Taking in all that she’s created: the little pink tables, hand painted, sticky from another summer in the sweltering ’60s, pink and green walls on every side. A young woman’s dream made reality: something for her to have and hold when she could use a little sweetness. Cold rises from the tubs, and her cheeks burn like they did when three words reminded her that her signature was as meaningful as a child’s scribbled with borrowed crayons, playing at adulthood: Head of Household. The loan officer with his pained smile, reaching for the pen clenched in her right hand, already looking to the next man in line. She loved gazing out the kitchen window at the Minnesota lakes, formed from ice scraping away at stubborn rock until it made space to flow. When she was first introduced to the world of contracts and counting, her practiced signature on fresh paper meant nothing without a man’s beside it. Thinking of pink tables and the smell of frozen milk and sugar she watched someone else sign for money they would never handle, sign for her plaid walls, pink and green lacing together like needlework. She likes to pay the bills now, see the ink curve and twist into something new, something that can stand alone. Honorable Mention by Amanda Retzbach 11th Grade Define Joy:
If joy had a smell, would it smell like paper-bound books? Like the dictionaries that seek so fruitlessly to interpret it? Or like homemade lasagna, ground coffee beans, the smell of freshly cut grass, and drying ink? Had I thought to define it, Undoubtedly, my definition would be incomplete, lacking and deficient, And, if nothing else, would simply confine it to words, and break it down into illogical letters, Any venture would end up with little more than meaningless characters, futile attempts at accuracy In which letters upon letters will not fabricate worth. If joy was a feeling, which one would it be? Love, Hope, Longing, Delight? Or is it an emotion? Maybe it’s a gentle touch, a mother’s kiss. Or is it a sight--An indulgent smile, hushed whispers paired with sheepish snickers and brazen grins? Maybe it’s the sun, shining brightly above imperfect flesh like a golden halo Smudged makeup as you cry happily, thinking only of the moment and wishing it would never end. If joy was tangible, would it taste like the Fourth of July? Your first taste of freedom, on the road, newly licensed. Driving too fast, too far, too young, too foolish. Maybe it’s the freedom of expression, Tie-dyed shirts, blue stained hair, and eyes, twinkling like stars adorned by the midnight sky Maybe it’s your first “I love you,” the words pressed carefully onto the skin of a past lover, And your first taste of reality, ignorant and fleeting, before you scurry back to safety, to family. Maybe it’s hot chocolate on rainy days, decorated by whipped cream, Rose petals dripped with fresh dew, sickly sweet, And peppermint candy mixed with the sweetest of smiles. If joy was a sound, would it sound like a name? Or would it sound like the ocean, the breeze, the rain? Would it be the vibrant laughter of a child, carefree and fearless, Or the unstoppable applause of an admiring audience? Could it be--impossible,I know-- Inspired by a songbird’s melody, Or by the steady beat of a loved one’s heart? Ba Bump. Ba Bump. Ba Bump. If joy is anything, well, how would I know? Maybe joy is uncontrollable. Maybe it’s rebellious. Maybe it’s wild. If joy is anything, would you agree it’s indescribable? Webster, Oxford, tell me, please, why you bother to define it, To confine it to hollow words only to become dreaded vocabulary? I cannot say. Yet, here I am, just as you, trying to put it into words, When joy is not a word, never was, but the moment Apollo 11 first shot towards the stars, When Harry Potter caught the snitch, and Shakespeare finished his final phrase. Why bother to define it, to restrict it to senseless thoughts constructed by senseless minds, When obviously it will always mean something different to me? People's Choice by Alecia Grigorchule 11th Grade I Found Joy I found joy I found joy in the little things Joy that comes from within, Something to get through the rough times I found joy in the sound of my parents’ laughter, wind rustling through trees, rushing passersby, pages turning I found joy in the sight of my siblings playing, friends reuniting, a genuine smile, leaves changing I found joy in the scent of fresh coffee smoke from a campfire, a freshly lit candle, Waves crashing I found joy in things I thought insignificant, In fleeting moments |
Last updated: April 5, 2019