Poetry Contest Winners
Will Power Contests - Words Out of the Box - Sonnet if you Want It
This year marks the 13th Annual Riverside Theatre Will Power Poetry Contest (for grades 7-12) sponsored by MidWestOne Bank. Thank you to all students who entered and to the teachers who encouraged them.
Riverside Theatre is especially grateful to Andrea Keech, who has enthusiastically supported the Will Power program at Northwest Junior High since 2000.
Selected entrants are being honored at the Will Power dress rehearsal performance of As You Like It on June 14. Winning entries are on display in May at MidWestOne Bank, 102 S. Clinton Street in Iowa City, and in June at the Iowa City Public Library.
Special congratulations to the following winners:
First Place – Junior High
Maria Shriver
Northwest Junior High, Coralville
Grade 8
The Rest is Silence
--Hamlet, Act V, Scene ii, Variant from the First Folio
Silence speaks
When nature’s near
It licks the lips
And rests the ear
Silence kills
When jealous hearts
Come face to face
And winter starts
Silence lives
In every place
When time reveals
A lover’s face
Silence fades
When patience fails
When chaos grows
And noise prevails
Second Place – Junior High
Brooke Barnette
West Middle School, Anamosa
Grade 8
The Crown
In the pillaged castle hall
Hopes lay withered
Broken dreams scattered
Upon the floor
Unity ripped apart
At the seams
A crown lays there
Dusty, forgotten
It tells of tale
Of love, and hope, then despair
Oh, all the stories
It must hold
I sit and wonder
What its tale
Might have been
My mind imagines
A world filled
Of ancient legends
A brand new kingdom
A beloved prince
Doing his duty
And serving his people
Then meeting a princess
His dreams has come true
Then terror and suffering
His kingdom fights for its life
To no avail
The enemy wins
His perfect dream
Is no more
But this tale isn’t over
A jewel upon the crown
Tells the end
Of the tale
It tells of hope
Of a new beginning
The old has gone
But new is yet
To come
New Kingdoms will arise
Peace and Happiness are there
On the horizon
Third Place – Junior High
Ryane Scott
Prairie Point Middle School, Cedar Rapids
Grade 8
A Warming Trend
Like a red on a rose,
That blows in the winds
Traces of love,
And not of sins,
Showers of hope,
And summers end,
Days of happiness,
And letters to send,
Questions to ask,
And answers to lend,
Things to do,
And rules to bend,
Love is love,
A warming trend
First Place – Senior High
Anna Egeland
West High School, Iowa City
Grade 12
Impact of fragile wing on dense oil
I
Sensation of falling.
Surge:
Flutter of heart
Release:
Flutter of wings
II
Ebb and flow
Of a crumpled aluminum heart
Ink that pulses
Through hollow bones,
Leaves behind empty space
A dimple in the crust:
A reminder of what once was
III
The sticky crinkle of cellophane
Is a sorrowful sound
And it hurts your ears.
Second Place – Senior High
Ashton Duncan
West High School, Iowa City
Grade 11
To Calmer Waters
For those who have walked between the ages
in exotic places’ spice dust traces,
remember time in Renaissance faces,
found a player’s game in the world’s stages…
To those who have been too long called sages,
recaptured seas, forgotten in stasis,
heard old soul tales from the lips of graces,
very stories scrawled in century’s pages…
Those who have foxes loved and lions feared,
been stared back by abyss-ended pier.
Who have been brutish, short, ‘til hope appeared,
had the great, light burden: a pen held dear.
To those who lived, loved, prospered, pioneered:
good night, good luck, to all who sailed here.