Librarian on the Go held its first poetry contest — called Quill & Ink — in April for National Poetry Month. It was so dubbed because the prizes were quill and ink sets.
The contest encouraged submissions from poets of all ages. Some entries were quite long, some quite short, but all of them reflected something of utmost interest to the author.
This librarian analyzed the poems based on SMILE, an acronym for structure, meaning, imagery, literary devices and effect.
Poetry exists in everyday observations. Take one of the winning poems, “Mosquito Hawk” by 3-year-old Anika Benusis Jensen:
Mosquito hawk, mosquito hawk
Go out of our house
Mosquito hawk, mosquito hawk
Go out of our house
Mosquito hawk, mosquito hawk
Go eat some mosquitoes
(And have a good time
Yummy, yummy).
It’s no wonder her mother submitted the entry. Through anaphora — the repeated use of a phrase at the beginning of multiple lines in the poem — Anika relays the exasperation of finding a mosquito hawk indoors. You may have seen a mosquito hawk tap against a closed window, seemingly doomed. I vividly imagined little Anika gaping at a mosquito hawk trapped inside her home, willing it to the freedom just within its reach.
Fourth-grader Aurelie Edwards of Bird Rock Elementary School won the middle-grade category with her poem, “Sunrise Aura”:
The beauty of the sunrise,
It stretches far and wide.
It climbs up to the city, flashing rainbow lights.
The call of the morning, birds say it all,
The sun rises up, but never free falls.
An everlasting aura spreads through sky,
The birds swoop down saying hello & bye,
Palm trees sway, people awake to see:
An aura across the sky.
Upon learning she won, Aurelie said: “Thank you for considering my poem. I’m glad to share it with people in our community. This poem was inspired by the sunrise from our kitchen window.”
Indeed, the description in her poem gently paints the picture of the most ethereal “good morning” greeting from the sky. I was left yearning to witness more sunrises in my lifetime. Does the poem have that effect on you?
Lastly, there is a certain topic responsible for inspiring the bulk of the poetry in the world. Love, of course! Leave it to the teenagers to speak to it.
In the young-adult category, the winning poem belongs to Sunny Mallick, a 10th-grader from The Bishop’s School:
the words i love you tumble from my lips:
jumping, whooping, knees scuffed,
unbridled energy, without fear.
they flow easily, they sing proud,
and i am reminded of a time
when i was not like this.
be careful but love freely, darling;
you will stumble, and that is okay —
just love while you are alive.
it is worth it;
it is so, so worth it.
This poem takes the cake for syntax. It serves up a trio of three-line stanzas, and then a line so important that it is reiterated.
Poems are an art form and therefore subject to interpretation by the beholder. In this poem, I see someone being brave enough to put themselves out there in love, despite trepidation, and providing their own friendly words of warning and reassurance. Perhaps this poem reminds you of a time when you dared to love purely and boldly.
Someone close to me once said poetry makes sentiment course through us like energy from a lightning rod. Congratulations to the winners of the Quill & Ink Poetry Contest. You’ve made us all think, feel and smile.
Katia Graham has a master of management in library and information science degree from USC. She is a former children’s services librarian at the La Jolla/Riford Library and is the founder of Librarian on the Go, a catalyst to encourage reading and community engagement through librarian outreach services. ◆
