Word Up Poetry Contest Winning Poems

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1st Place, College (under 21) Group:
Fiona McNabb, University of Maryland, College Park

Hallowed Ground

Hollow trees are giants, burnt and stiff
From the sun's rage. What were monsters
Once are just bones now. Like a great cliff,
The trunk rises. Elephant thunder
Rings out over the wasteland of dust
And cracked earth. Dawn is riding, dimmer
Than grey, on the horizon. The rust
Of sunlight scales mountains, scraping,
Rough as old concrete. It stains the husk
Of morning with umber hues. Dying.
The elephant sprawls under trees
That give no shade. No shade is coming,
Even if he lasts. The salt seas
Have left only the corpses of
Shadows in this place. Soon he will be
Hollow. Like trees without the sun’s love


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2nd Place, College (under 21) Group:
Caroline Kessler, Carnegie Mellon University

Five or Six or Seven Smokestacks

Leave your hearts at home, because otherwise
they’ll be stolen, the father says.

In the early summer morning, the children shove the rowboat
across the stones, into the water, wave goodbye to their father. All day,

they collect scraps of tin and rubber, rewarded with a few
grimy pennies. Lunch along the sandy bank: black
crusts of bread.

Far-off factories curve haze. The back-breaking, back-bending
work continues. Sweat lay in the body’s crevices—

between neck and collarbone, underneath wrists, in the back’s
hollow, between the shoulder blades. They let their sweaty limbs
balloon into the water. What else is hiding

in those depressions? Their father approaches,
his back to his children as he bows forward to meet the oars:
a prayer to the water

while September looms: briny water, strips of fading
daylight, chugging boats, whispering tide.

The boys murmur as they drag the rowboat across the shore.
Everyone’s cheeks are chilled from the nighttime air.
Their hearts are waiting safely.
 

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3rd Place, College (under 21) Group:
Sheharyar Sawar, Howard Community College

Let’s Not and Say We Did

Let’s not and say we did,
So they can starve
And she can burn
While he runs away
After lighting the match
And grabbing her jar of change.

Let’s not and say we did,
So the sisters can work corners
And the brother can sell it by the ounce,
While just one needle loses its touch
And straws become too thin for the lines drawn
On a table once covered in coffee stains.

Let’s not and say we did
Until their bodies twitch and shiver
And purple babies are born
While the corners are crowded
With the sisters of so many other men
And the prices have fallen.

Throw them out and claim our credit.
We cleansed the city of Whores and Bastards
And the city is with us,
While they starve in its outskirts:
All the attendees of a silent funeral.
Their procession lies still...
 

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1st Place, 10th-12th Grade Group:
Brian Tich, Marriotts Ridge High School, Grade 10 Return to top

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2nd Place, 10th-12th Grade Group:
Alexis Monroe, Glenelg Country School, Grade 12

bridge

the strong, hard stones
stacked
some, like old men
because of feeble hip
or ancient knee
lean agedly to one side
wrinkling their hardened,
grey faces
with geriatric discomfort.

while others,
the rock-straight soldiers,
salute atop the elderly
assuming their
precarious positions
with quiet dignity.

there are, too,
the young boys
who fall in where
middle nor end can
in curves and crannies
along the water or under arches.

side-by-side,
with the silent solitude of a mourner
who does not cry,
are the dead men
finding their final home
at the bottom
while their unmoving and slowly
decaying forms
crowned with moss
are being washed
and lapped upon
by their gentle gravedigger,
water.

the men
align themselves
their visages pallid or pale,
flushed with the occasional pink
of the underside of a petal,
balancing shoulder to revered shoulder
clasping firmly between
hill and bank
hold still
for eternity

 

 

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3rd Place, 10th-12th Grade Group:
Sy Kyung So, Glenelg High School, Grade 12

Leaf

The wind blows her body into the sky
They dance upon the clouds so light as air
Below the trees, the grass, and flowers lie
With envy at her moments without care
 
She follows where the wind will carry her
The place to listen where the angels sing
A purpose in her mind does not occur
Of what her journey is supposed to bring
 
She soars too far into the blinding light
And quickly flutters back towards the ground
The shine falls out of reach from any sight
She spins a deathly circle round and round
 
She looks down at the life on earth with pain
Their roots so planted tears roll down her face
The freedom that she can no longer feign
Has left her as a floating speck in space
 
But then the wind would say it’s not too late
Tomorrow it will let her choose her fate

But just accept.


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Honorable Mention, 10th-12th Grade Group:
Alexis Wise, Homeschool, Grade 10

I am from broken windows and
Bullet hole doors
From garbage streets and needled
Playgrounds
I am from “Get the hell out!” and
“Where’s my money?”
Sirens and barking dogs is
What I hear where I’m from—
From Three Nine’s Tavern and heavy medication
I am from missing TV’s and pink
Bedrooms and
Ninja turtle pillows
Aristocats and Toy story is where I’m from
Funkytown and
The Sugar Hill Gang
3 point shots and touchdowns
From house to house to house

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