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Arts & Entertainment

Magic at the 18th Annual High School Poetry Competition Awards Ceremony and Poetry Reading

Poems and art ruled the evening

Poetry lives, and it was never more alive than this week, when half a hundred high school students read their poems out loud before a packed house of supporters.

This was the 18th Annual High School Poetry Competition awards and poetry reading ceremony held at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education in Santa Cruz and featuring a showing of art, photography and graphic media by local high schoolers, which was followed by poetry readings.

This year, 357 poems were submitted, all of which were read by three judges: Kate Aver Avraham, Susan Freeman and Danusha Laméris. Three poems were awarded prizes ranging from $25 to $100 dollars, six made honorable mention, and 51 made the printed anthology.

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All high school students in Santa Cruz County were eligible to enter the annual poetry competition, and some entries were even made from by youth within Juvenile Hall, through the writing program The Beat Within.

Dennis Morton, who was master of ceremonies at the event, spends much of his time teaching writing and poetry to youth in juvenile hall and a variety of alternative education programs through the county and larger Bay Area.

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“My most important contribution is encouraging my alt ed students to enter the competition. This year, including the four poems from juvy, 10 of the poems in the anthology were written by kids I work with," said Morton.

"That's pretty cool, because it means that juvy and alt ed kids provided about 20 percent of the poems selected for the anthology by the judges - who did not know the names of the students, or which schools they attended.”

Each student who had a poem selected for the anthology was invited to read, and the room was packed with parents and friends who attended to show their support.

Below are some poems printed in the anthology Kavi Duvoori, a sophmore at Mount Madonna School, and a video of David Gonzales, 18, a senior at San Lorenzo Valley High school, reading his poem Who You Are, as well as some poems by youth from juvenile hall, who must remain anonymous for legal reasons. Also posted is some art featured at the event.

For more information, or if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the anthology contact Len Anderson at len@poetrysantacruz.org.

Dangling

I can here the keys dangling

as they walk by my cell,

like a rattlesnake hissing

in the hallways of hell.

Footsteps approaching

telling me to do well.

Is it a demon or an angel?

I can't really tell.

Anonymous

 

Blinking In Reverse

I lie to walk with closed eyes,

only open a moment every second or two,

blinking in reverse while carried through a world wrapped in light

to see that world as it is:

a series of still enigmas,

Flash! And fading lines

deprived of the illusion of continuity

that watches some silhouette leaning, then shifted

and denies the possibility that there could be nothing in between

or an image yet unseen,

the stillness in a hummingbird's wing;

and some quality movement masks

which returns to sight the intensity of a question,

lost in the belief of comprehension

that I could be more than a moment and memory

(just another moment: without firmness, with words)

A single pattern in light, sound, and answering,

that is every pattern

In the angular shadows reiterating a tunnel of orange columns that ends in a door,

around two figures, a girl, and a boy with light reaching around half his cheek

through the door in the bodies leaning on the desks, and a slumped man

creating a past of bank policies and genocide, answered in scratching pencils

and in this pencil, a point that is many lines, wrapping into ideas

on a flat, blue lined texture that would become a memory

and the possibility of plastic, and tapping hands

transferring grand tracings through intersecting planes

as moment and eternity;

the incomprehensible fading lines

--Kavi Duvvoori, Mount Madonna School

Like a Clock

The sun is in the sky

but in my mind its still night.

The shadow approaches

but my heart's without fright.

Posted on the porch

with my brain filled with splinters,

my smile starts to fade

and my blood gets cold as winter.

The law's got me.

The voices in my head guide me.

My futures on the block.

Poems are my release.

My minds turning like a clock.

 

Anonymous

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