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General News: Young Poets Receive Awards
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| Elizabeth Joan Davis read her poem |
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| Karla-Marie Marcelle wrote about her father |
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| Poets and parents filled the audience |
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| Warren Mumford spoke about his son |
May 02, 2007
Young poets are proliferating in the Cornwall area, if the poetry competition at the public library is any indication.
In the second year of the competition, which has been renamed to honor local poet and musician Timothy Mumford who died last year, 78 aspiring poets submitted 158 poems, nearly triple the number of poets who participated last year.
At a ceremony on Sunday afternoon in front of a standing-room only crowd, library director Molly Robbins thanked all of the young poets. “A poem is such a personal experience,” Robbins noted, “that it is great to be able to share them.”
Warren Mumford, the father of Timothy, recognized how his son’s work as a library page nurtured his love of words, adding that he became famous among his friends for always carrying a pen and paper to scribble down ideas for a song or poem.
Mary Mumford, his mother, later said that Timothy was very shy in high school and he was stunned at his graduation in 1999 when it was announced that he had won the Orange County Poetry Competition. “It really did change his life,” Mary said, “he became a judge in the competition the next year and went on to play in two rock bands.”
Warren told the crowd of young poets that he hoped that the competition would inspire them to care about poetry, literature, and ideas as much as Timothy did.
As she announced the winners, library director Robbins said that each of the 78 poets who submitted work would get a recognition.
Below are the winning poets in each age category, plus the winner of the overall best poem award.
Top Poem
Sonnet
By Stephen Austin Redden, age 17
Long have I traveled to a distant place
Returning I tell of an Empire old
Where shattered temples have fallen from grace
The columns and faces sunk in the ground cold
Memories of those citizens slowly efface
But there on a building with façade antique
Long ago stolen by a foreign belief
Last of its kind, a construction unique
And on the pediment these words appear,
“I am monarch, august commander-in-chief;
This temple fathered for all to revere
In its aspects and countenance fair”
Nothing else remains from that august king
Save for his cracked face, half in the air
And the tourists say, “What is that thing?”
Winners By Age Group
What Family Is
By Nichi Jackson, age 5
My Daddy is a jungle gym
My Mommy is a trampoline
My Brother is a monkey
My dog is like a little bear
We are all a great family
Writing in Colored Ink
By Elizabeth Joan Davis, age 9
I’m writing my poem
As I write in pink,
I try to think fast
Since I’m running out of ink,
Writing in colored ink
I ran out of pink
I’m writing in blue
The color of my tears
Because I have feelings too,
Writing in colored ink
The blues are all gone too
So I’m writing in green,
The color of an envious me
A color that is keen,
Writing in colored ink
Greens out of here
And arriving is red,
A color of fiery anger
As I hit my bed,
Writing in colored ink
Me and My Father
Karla-Marie Marcelle, age 12
People say I have my father’s eyes
And yet, I don’t see him.
People say I have my father’s emotions,
And yet, I don’t feel him.
People say “You should listen to your father.”
How can I if I don’t hear him.
How could someone be so like another,
Yet never know him.
Why does someone love another
And live without, and die without him.
I don’t know.
Maybe I will find the answers in the heart and soul
Of my father.
Regret
By Allison Robert-Louche, age 15
Regret is an awful feeling
It takes over your mind like a hypnotizer.
The pain dwells for days or for some, even years.
It’s hard to over come regret.
Only time can help the depression.
The best thing to do is never look back,
And enjoy life as it is, a wreck.
Unrequited
By Sarah Sterner, age 16
I felt like we were in a movie
Except, if we had been
We would have realized how wrong we were,
That we really were madly in love
(No doubt we would have kissed)
And of course,
Of course
We would have been on a rooftop in early morning
With his helicopter about to take off
He suspended me about seven inches off the ground
For what seemed like
A most gracious and fleeting eternity of love
In which a flash of light
Brought to life, the fragments of poetry
That lay dormant in my mind
On that rooftop/stage
With the helicopter leading my hair
Through a tempestuous pas de deux
He stopped time and freed me
Laying to use all my inner devices
Working in ways I knew not of
Nor ever want to fathom
All I know it
He makes the ink flow from my fingertips
Love,
You viscous muse
You leave me always beaten
As one of the imaginative and the wilting
The unrequited.
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