Sarina Lee
You make me laugh
You make me cry
You’re always grounded
You’re always busy
There’s a bridge between me and you
I wish to cross
But I don’t know how to
From Scholastic Honorable Mention winner Annabelle Vest's "You"
The Pink Crayon
Pink is an eager little girl.
With a heart
Bigger than her
Cotton candy
Containing the cotton candy
Sweetness
She jumps
Into the pool with the sun shining down on her
Excitement clouds
The flakes of hair streaking away
Time fades in the blink of an eye, blinking away like the flakes of hair
Soon to be bedridden
She remembers
Remember that one cotton candy
As if it were just yesterday
Quinn Bennett
Artist: Vivienne Oehler
The smoke clears and there you are,
In ruins of your own home.
Waiting, for the hated enemies
to come back to you.
Your ears are pierced
with screams of the desperate
From Tiago Carlos' "Famished Child"
[S]ix kids are roaming the forest and things start getting weird. The deeper into the forest they go, the more out of order the forest gets. Then, they start getting into the depths of the forest and they see dead animals everywhere. They then start running, deep in fear.
From Erick Argueta's "Figure in the Forest"
Artists: Harold Adler and Jagoda Siwinska
I wonder if I’m good enough for you anymore,
if you’ve changed since I knew you
hoping there’s still some part of you
That’s right where I left it undisturbed.
I knew what that girl liked- I knew
Her favorite kind of bird. How she liked her favorite
Root beer floats. Her favorite movies.
But this isn’t that girl- this is someone else
Someone I do not recognize.
Someone I haven’t met yet.
Or maybe, you’re the same- maybe it’s me who changed,
who became different beyond recognition
From Audrey Famer's poem
Artist: Dhanilo Savur
Freezing cold air jostles me awake,
leaving my lips blue and my nose red,
the change rings in my ears,
confident and deafening,
dampened by earmuffs, but nonetheless there
From Emma Lee's "Autumn Air"
"In the country of Potria, the war was still raging. It had been going on for years, with millions of casualties. It seemed as if it would never end, and would eventually destroy Potria. In the tiny village of Hiroy, people were still hidden from the war, as it had no political importance and wasn’t on most maps. The Torians, from the north, never learned of it, but soon, something terrible happened."
From Adam Gargouri's "Final Battle"
Artist: Alex Hidalgo
"Selene woke up in a room that was dark, damp and smelled musty. She ran to the barred window in front of her, but something stopped her from reaching it. Her hands were in steel clasps that were attached to heavy chains drilled into the floor. She heard a dog whining, and Selene saw that Champion was in a cage. “Oh, you poor thing,” Selene murmured. The clasps allowed her to turn and push them along the sliding lock to free Champion. Once Champion was out of the cage, he unlocked her clasps with his teeth. Selene had trained him to do all kinds of human-like things, in case Khan attacked."
From Julia English's "Prologue"
Water, the life bringer,
everything in nature needs it,
but when you least expect it
It comes rushing in,
a great wave of destruction.
From James Castiglione's "Nature is Two Faced"
Queen Rhiannon watched the rain fall from the gray-blue sky. The clouds looked as if they were painted on in rough strokes. The delicate yet sturdy trees moved with the whistling wind. Their tune drowned out the soft language of the forest. How could so few care to learn its words? How could so many brush aside this mystical silent discourse? Rhiannon's long, fiery hair flowed around her. Her forehead was marked with the silver stars of the witches. Such creatures protect and nourish this land. The silver magic of the moon shielded her from the pouring rain, and her skin was smooth and bright, even as centuries had passed over her immortal body. Time. A river, always changing and never-ending.
From Violet Widboom's Scholastic Art and Writing submission
I am the daughter of Guatemalan parents.
of a lot of marimba,
and I like to dance the son, with notes of the marimba,
my heart also dances.
Soy hija de padres guatemaltecos
de mucha marimba,
y me gusta bailar el son, con las notas de la marimba
también baila mi corazón.
From Samantha Mendez Perez's Soy de / I Am From
instructions for reading
let sentences strike you like lightning
let words run wild and free
let declarations and arguments and descriptions pull you down deep
deep
deep
into the calm depths of a story
let characters inspire you and make you wonder
let poems feel rich like honey
let yourself fall into new worlds
and let yourself learn of the magic that dances and frolics and sparks between the two covers
of a good book
evan nelson
*The lowercase letters in this poem are intentional.
Artist: Mia Vieira
"Jeni with eyes the color of black like the dark. Jeni with beautiful, long straight hair, brown like coffee..."
From Maria Huespe Morinigo's "Jeni, The Human"
I stand above her grave in shame and sorrow.
Everything around me starts to feel hollow.
I place the flower in orderly fashion,
Just like she would’ve but she would’ve done it with passion.
It feels like every feeling ran away,
But why does sadness stay?
From Emilia Guevara's Flowers in the Rain
"What most people know is the feeling of presenting in front of a stage. It makes you feel blank inside, it feels like there are ten anvils tumbling on top of you. It feels like there's a fuse about to light and then blow up. But the worst part is when you actually present: the feeling is unbearable and. when you do it for the first time, it's horrible."
From Omar Macedonio's "Relief"
A drop falls, a circle forms
A ripple's birth, in gentle storms
It spreads and grows, a widening ring
A disturbance calm, with a peaceful sting
Through waters still, it makes its way
A subtle dance, in a sunny day
It touches shores, and laps at the land
A soothing melody, from an unseen hand
A ripple's power, is not in its might
But in its gentle touch, and its quiet flight
It stirs the depths, and awakens the sea
A reminder of the beauty, that's meant to be
As the ripple fades, and its journey ends
It leaves behind, a memory that transcends
A symbol of the impact, we have on our way
A reminder to be gentle, every single day.
Lydia Andrus
Audrey Famer (poet, above right)
"I remember one day at school when I noticed a girl sitting by herself at lunch. She looked kind of sad, and I had seen her around before but never really talked to her. I wasn’t sure what to say at first, but I just walked over and said, 'Hey, I really like your necklace! It’s super cute.' She looked up, smiled, and thanked me. We started chatting a little after that, and it was nice. It wasn’t a deep conversation, but I could tell it made her feel a little better. She is now my best friend."
From Abigail Rocha's essay
"Michelle, who is a tall girl, who can make friends even faster than she can run, is a girl who gets out of school and hops into a big yellow bus with her older sister ... [and] does her homework as soon as she comes home, and eats a small snack until it's time for dinner who then calls her best friend to talk about school or life ... until her mom tells her it's time to go to bed."
From Angelica Vazquez's imitation
On The Day The Carrots Burned, we were lost.
We were hungry, thirsty, and afraid.
Our mouths felt like sand, and our skin like chalk
We had run out of food.
By sunrise, we found a stream.
The sound of the flow was mesmerizing.
We decided to follow it.
On The Day The Carrots Burned, we found civilization.
They didn’t look like us.
They didn’t sound like us.
They didn't want us to be there.
But we stayed.
On The Day The Carrots Burned, we reached our goal.
We found shelter.
We found jobs.
We survived.
From Lucien Bowell's "The Day The Carrots Burned"
Artist: Neala Greene
"As I walk down this sandy beach, I can feel the sand crunching between my toes. I can feel a light sea salt spray coming in my face as the wind hits the salty ocean water. I can touch the roughness of the rocks with my calloused hands. I can feel the sun's rays hitting my face. As I walk down the sandy beach, I can hear laughter coming from all around me."
From Lila W. Dlugacz's "Sandy Beach"
"Sometimes people feel they need to lock away their feelings
Only they may know why"
From Scarlett Goldstein's "Feelings"
"In Syria's shattered streets, a soul did stray
A refugee, lost, with heart in disarray
Like a leaf on a desert wind, she'd wander and roam
Searching for shelter, a place to call home
Her eyes, like dark wells, held secrets untold"
From Julian Vargas' "A Refugee's Lament"
To stand on a podium
Face the country that follows you starry eyed
Children
You say, we cradle in our palms like jewels
Shining beacons of our future
it can’t be all
not the children we look away from
cries fading into the dark night
as we carry them back over the border
to a country that has no regard for their lives
wrapped like a present from
“The Better Land”
is there no place where being a child is safe?
if what we say is true
not promises spilling, twisting, turning
into wicked snakes
lies of those children matter too
From Annabelle Vest's imitation
Artist: Matthew Wattenberg
my body is girly and
muslim and
iranian and
farsi-speaking and
pink and
brown haired and
medium legs and
white skinned and
small mouth and
feet running and
mouth that talk and
heart beating and
hands that work and
eyes that looking and
my daddy's kindness and
my mama’s happiness and
my grandma’s voice and
my body is masterpiece and
my body is mine
Fatemeh Assadi Nazari
Read more imitations by 6th grade English language learners here
Artist: Anonymous