Penn-Griffin Students Sweep Awards at Phoenix Literary Festival

Rachel Thompson, one of the Student Poet Laureate Award winners in this year's NC English Teacher's Association writing awards, has just received the prestigious Thomas Walter's Award for Literary Excellence. Her teacher, John York, has mentored many young writers over the past years, and Rachel is his third student to win the Walters Award. Rachel's first place poem follows the announcement below. Congratulations to all the students who were recognized for their writing and to John for being such a splendid teacher and poet.

John's Naming the Constellations was published this fall and has been featured on Verse Daily and on facebook's Spring Street Editions page. Follow the link above to read about his book and enjoy some poems from the collection.

Three students from Penn-Griffin school for the arts won prizes at the Phoenix Literary Festival at High Point University on November 19: Cameron Bello received an Honorable Mention for Poetry; Chelsea Hansen, an Honorable Mention for Poetry; and Rachel Thompson, an Honorable Mention for Short Story, First Place for Poetry, and the Thomas Walters Award for Literary Excellence.

The festival, an annual event, is sponsored by the HPU English Department. Students attend workshops led by area writers, as well as a reading by an outstanding writer from the state. This year’s reader was Daniel Wallace, who wrote the novel Big Fish and teaches at Carolina.

The Thomas Walters Award goes to that student who excels in both genres, poetry and fiction, and brings with it a substantial cash prize. The students from Penn-Griffin were sponsored by John York, who teaches English and creative writing at the arts magnet, which is part of Guilford County Schools.

He has published three poetry collections, most recently Naming the Constellations, published by Spring Street Editions of Sylva. Many of his students have won literary awards over the past decade, and Rachel is the third of his students to win the Walters Award.

Grow

His feet sprout roots

that lift him from the ground

till his hair is a cloud

and his limbs harbor finches.

His green fingers

stroke the air

as leaves fall from the sky.

Then the clouds are his tunic.

He pats the nest

on his head.

Birds chirp and jump

onto his fingers.

He grows and grows

till his eyes become stars

and he sees the Sahara

and the glowing North Pole.

He watches big movies:

the birth of a star,

the galaxy collision,

brilliant Andromeda.

He laughs as a comet

streaks his smile.

But the men don’t see stars

only flames, smoke.

He’s not one to mourn,

so he waves and smiles

as the men

torch his feet.

--Rachel Thompson,

Penn-Griffin School for the Arts,

High Point, North Carolina

NC STUDENT LAUREATE AWARDS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL: LINDSEY DODGE, CAITLIN PARRIS, AND ABRIANNA BERRY

Macon Middle School in Franklin, NC, swept the Middle School category in our third annual NC English Teachers Association Student Poet Laureate Awards, judged by Cathy Smith Bowers, our state Poet Laureate. They are receiving their awards today at the annual conference held at Wake Forest University. Falecia Metcalf was our Second Prize winner last year. Addie Fairchild has been among the winners of the Mount Jefferson State Park's annual poetry contests. Congratulations to these five young poets!

Abrianna Berry, Caitlin Parris, and Lindsey Dodge, Macon County Middle School








First Prize: TIE


Everything




Everything is the same
Her clothes still hang in the closet
Pictures sit there gathering dust
There's still her place on their bed
Pawpaw doesn't disturb


by Lindsey Dodge, Macon Middle School, Franklin, NC




Kathy


I loved to watch her
in her big sun hat,
wiping the sweat
from her face,
kneeling on the ground
like she was praying.


The flowers she planted
were the most beautiful things
I have ever seen.


When she watered them,
the water would dance across them,
the sun shining over them.




Caitlin Parris
Macon Middle School








Second:


Squirrel Hunting With My Dad


We went up the mountain where
My dad hunted when he was little.
It was cold, the wind
Whipping up the holler, trees shaking.
Me and Daddy went to the top of the mountain.
We sat down and waited and had
A silent talk.


*******
by Abrianna Berry, Macon Middle School




Honorable Mention:




Child of the Wind,

by Falecia Metcalf, N. Buncombe Middle School, Weaverville


Sing to me,
with a soft melody.
Talk to me,
as if to a child.
Comfort me,
as if I were yours,
because in my heart
I am.
Whisper to me,
with words of joy.
I belong right here,
spinning around and around.
Guide me,
with a helping hand.
Lead me,
for without that
I'd be lost forever.
Stop me,
and make me think clearly.
I've always felt this way
no way to make it stop.
Not always in this place,
but always remembering
that special feeling
of belonging
I'm always look for.
Cradle me;
I'm yours,
a child of the Wind



I FEEL THE SEASONS (Mount Jefferson)


I feel the winter coldness on my face,
the trees that cover me are all frozen
My nose is frozen.
The air is windy

The snow is all around me.

I feel the spring breeze through my hair,

From the bottom up I'm green all over.

Animals waking everywhere,
Flowers swaying along with the wind,
Flowers all around me.

I feel the summer sun on my shoulders,

People climbing to my peak.

The fiery warmth touches me day and night,

Picnics on my tree covered skirt,

Fireflies all around me.
I feel the chill through my ruffled coat,

As time changes, days get shorter.

Leaves are falling through the brisk air,

The temperature is dropping down low,
Bright Colors all around me.



Addie Fairchild
6th grade, Westwood Elementary
Jefferson, NC

NINA OTERIA: NC STUDENT POET LAUREATE AWARDS

Nina Oteria Foster, whose poem "Leaving It Behind" received Honorable Mention in this year's NCETA Student Poet Laureate Awards, is a senior at Raleigh Charter High School. She has written poetry since her middle years and has self-published a volume of poetry entitled Sunshine @ Midnight. For the past two years she has been the assistant at the NC State Young Writers' Workshop. Nina also won the At-Large award in the 2009 Raleigh Fine Arts Society short story contest for her story Caution: Slippery When Wet.

Leaving it Behind

by: Nina Oteria

chase me on the wind

chase me like change,

like revelry with no writhing regrets

chase me

into the chapped, chipped, charred corners

chase me

I challenge the pretty, prude past

chase me like freedom and failure and the fall

for I am on the wind,

unwieldy, changing dang direction on a whim

no seven sails,

no captain, nor compass

so chase me

chance, fate, change:

I challenge you.

chase me.

MANDI DEAN: NCETA STUDENT POET LAUREATE AWARDS

Mandi Dean, who is a junior at Smoky Mountain High School, received Honorable Mention in the NCETA Student Poet Laureate Awards for the following poem. It's great to see students writing sonnets these days!

The World’s Music

The noise that’s all around me fills my ears—
The bouncing, laughing, bubbly shrieks of glee.
A cry, a shout, and eyes welled up with tears;
Arpeggios formed in oddest harmony.
The school of bricks that looms two stories tall,
It swallows me into its rooms of chance,
With colors swirled on boards and down the hall,
And waves of voices twirling in their dance.
And when I seek my place of solitude
The trees whisper their stories to the wind.
The grasses sway and sunlight lifts my mood,
While birds sing under skies that have no end.
The music of the world is part of me,
And with it from the world I am now free.

--Mandi Dean

RACHEL THOMPSON: NC STUDENT POET LAUREATE AWARDS

RACHEL THOMPSON'S submission to this years NC English Teachers Association's Student Laureate Awards has received Honorable Mention in the High School division. Rachel, the daughter of Gary and Lynda Thompson, is a senior and an orchestra student, a violinist, at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts. She wants to write a novel one day. Her poetry has won honorable mentions in contests sponsored by the Phoenix Festival and N. C. Poetry Society, as well as a second prize from Muse on Greensboro, a contest sponsored by the Greensboro Public Library.

Ripples or Pages

Pink sunset

glittering off the lake

as Your voice whispers through tree tops.

In the sun behind the distant storm clouds

I see Your features-- quite subtle

quite obvious.

You wrap Your arms around me

as the lake, the meadow,

and the forest of oak and pine surrounding.

Deep breath - closed eyes

I float to the surface of the lake

Your touch is the ripples

Smile

~~~

Brow furrowed and science books

the frown on his face forms another wrinkle.

Diagrams and charts lay scattered below his eyes.

Head on hand on desk-- the lamp's light

when looked at directly, causes its shape

to repeat itself with every blink and eye's movement.

If he looked out the window

he'd see the lamp's ghosted image

instead of the stars.

-Rachel Thompson,

Penn-Griffin School for the Arts

KARINA MCCORKLE: NC STUDENT POET LAUREATE AWARDS

      Karina McCorkle has been awarded Second Prize (High School Division)in the NC English Teachers Association's 2010 Student Poet Laureate Awards for her poem VESTIGE.  Karina recently shared some details about her background and interests. She will read her poem and receive her award at the NCETA Annual Awards Luncheon at Wake Forest University late October.

I am a 17 year old senior at Enloe Magnet High School who has lived in North Carolina all my life. I have wanted to be a writer since I was six, when another girl told me I could not draw rainbows properly and dashed my dreams of being an artist. I have always been more of a prose writer than a poet, but the Poetic Voices and Writer's Studio electives at Enloe (taught by Priscilla Chappell and Joyce Nelson respectively) have opened me up to a lot of new poets in the past two years, and I have suddenly found myself almost more of a poet than a writer of prose. Amongst my favorite poets areJeffrey McDaniel and Sherman Alexie, and I have a weakness for T.S. Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock". When not reading or writing, I am involved in a medieval sword fighting group where I am currently learning rapier and in a puppet troupe at my church.

Vestige

My grandmother was built of cigarettes.

everything smelled like her smoke

house, car, self.

skin so papery

I could feel the ash shifting underneath

like sand in a rag doll.

Her scent permeated our bodies

arriving home, we

scrubbed ourselves raw.

when she died

I wanted to never bathe again

so I wouldn't forget her.

Then I remembered

that I had been breathing her in

my whole life

the pale interior of my lungs

stained black

with her love.

--Karina McCorkle

EDWARD MADILL: FIRST PRIZE IN NCETA'S HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT LAUREATE AWARDS

Of this poem, the first place winner in the High School Category of the Student Poet Laureate Awards, Cathy Smith Bowers said--"Oh wow! This young poet is amazing!"

Ed is now a freshman at UNC-Asheville. While at Smoky Mountain High School, he volunteered to help with the Friends of the Library, among other organizations. He will receive an award of $250 and, of course, a certificate at the Fall NCETA Conference at Wake Forest University. I hope he can come read this poem. He's a fine reader of poetry.

Your Mom

Your mom thinks she can talk

To animals.

Which is cool….

But I still get freaked out,

Especially when she looks my cat in the eye and

Sincerely asks him

“What’s wrong?”

To this my cat licks himself

(there were a couple of grungy spots).

He saunters over to the litter box and pees.

I smell a whiff of ammonia.

Your mom sulks to the living room couch,

dejectedly,

Audubon prints hanging in the

corner.

Your mom thinks she can talk

To animals.

Which is cool….

But every time I see her walk past your “pets”

(The man you keep in the hamster cage,

the woman that lives in that cute miniature house

Out in your front yard,

Or even you—

With your nice nose and your okay figure),

I want to say:

“Hey!

Not only did you confuse the

Piss out of my cat,

But none of us know

What’s going on in your head….

Which is not cool.”

And I still remember that day when you asked:

“Doesn’t everyone’s mommy talk to animals?”

And for show and tell you brought in a poem,

Dictated to your mom by your parakeet.

And all the while

In the background of your house,

People whisper unheard syllables

About the sun, the moon, and the stars

(And maybe

Something about the circle of life,

Our place in the world, and all those questions

That keep us up at night)

To the thinning air,

Near the only window in your house.

Edward Madill

2010 NC STUDENT POET LAUREATE AWARD WINNERS

Here they are, the winners of the 2010 North Carolina Student Poet Laureate Awards, sponsored by the NC English Teachers Association. Final judge was our current Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers. Because I like to mix things up a bit, I'm posting most of their photos in no particular order. These poets will have their own posts in the coming days, so that you may enjoy their poems on a daily basis and help them celebrate their accomplishments. They will be honored at the NCETA Awards Luncheon on Oct. 22 at Wake Forest University. For more information about the NCETA student writing awards, please go to www.ncenglishteacher.org.

Rachel Thompson, Penn-Griffin High School

Edward Madill, graduate of Smoky Mountain High School, now at UNC-A.

Abrianna Berry, Caitlin Parris, and Lindsey Dodge, Macon County Middle School

Mandi Dean, Smoky Mountain High School, Sylva, NC

Nina Oteria Foster, Raleigh Charter High School

Karina McCorkle, Enloe Magnet School, Raleigh, NC

2010 NC Student Poet Laureate Winners

High School

First: Edward Madill, “Your Mom,” Smoky Mountain High School, Sylva, NC

Second: Karina McCorkle, “Vestige” Enloe Magnet High School, Raleigh,

Honorable Mentions:

Ripples or Pages, Rachel Thompson, Penn-Griffin High School, High Point

The World's Music, Mandi Dean, Smoky Mt. High School, Sylva

Leaving it Behind, Nina Oteria (Foster), Raleigh Charter High School

Summer of 1918, Tori Eaton, First Flight High School, Kill Devil Hills, NC

Middle School:

First: (tie) Lindsey Dodge, “Everything,” Macon Middle School, Franklin

Caitlin Parris, “Kathy,” Macon Middle School, Franklin

Second: Abrianna Berry, “Squirrel Hunting with my Dad, “ Macon Middle School, Franklin

Honorable Mention:

Falecia Metcalf, “Child of the Wind,” N Buncombe Middle School, Weaverville

Addie Fairchild, “Mountain Jefferson”

6th grade, Westwood Elementary

Jefferson, NC

Student Poets and Sheila Kay Adams Celebrated

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(With Nancy Posey, Director of NCETA's Student Writing Awards)

Yesterday's drive over the mountains to Caldwell Community College was fraught with uncertainty. I didn't know how the weather was going to turn out, and I wasn't sure about the directions Mapquest had given me. Yes, I got lost. And I decided asking folks at service stations and Kentucky Fried works better than the internet if you're lost.

Sure enough, thanks to the cheerily helpful woman at KFC, I found Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute. Nancy Posey, past president of the NC English Teachers Association and this year's Director of Student Writing Awards, greeted me as I walked in with a big box of First Light booklets.

Lunch was just what we needed after a cold, windy morning: soup. White chili, red chili, chicken noodle, cabbage-sausage. Both the white chili and the cabbage soup were great, and to be honest, I was having a hard time paying attention to Elaine Cox announcing the Teacher of the Year because I was enjoying that soup so seriously! After Elaine's presentation, the Student Awards were presented, the first being the Wade Edwards Fiction Award, followed by the Watterson-Timberlake Essay presentations, the subject this year being "Memoir."

Then, it was time for POETRY. Because of weather and distance several of our student winners couldn't make it, but all of our Middle School winners did, even Allie Sekulich, all the way from Raleigh with her parents Mike and Kim and her siblings Summer and Nick. C.J. Murphy, his teacher Lydia Dunn, and his mother made it from Hickory, and Falecia Metcalf and family were in the audience, as well, having driven over from Buncombe County. Falecia's teacher at N. Buncombe Middle School, Julie Young, was there, too.

These young poets were understandably nervous about reading their poems to a large audience, so I offered to read their work for them, after presenting their awards. That was the best part of the day! Reading them aloud, I realized all over again how good these poems are.
Here we are after the program.

(From left, C.J. Murphy, Falecia Metcalf, me, and Allie Sekulich)

Only one high school awardee attended, our first place winner, Sarah Brady. She, too, traveled from Raleigh with her mother Rebecca. She read her splendid poem, Vocabulary Words, to nods of appreciation from the assembled teachers.

(Sarah Brady and her mother Rebecca)

The Ragan-Rubin Awardee this year was Sheila Kay Adams, an old friend. How old I won't reveal. We sat together at lunch, Sheila with her ibook, scrolling through a long piece of prose. John York was to my other side, enjoying his chili. Perfect lunch companions!

(Nancy Posey presenting Sheila Kay Adams with the Ragan-Rubin Award)

Sheila's presentation was a reading from her laptop, a new book she began a while back, "weird," she said, but I'd call it magical. Sheila is a born performer, right down to her gold shoes, which you'll see in this photo of Sheila signing books after the program.

After the book signings, Sheila Kay received yet another award--the Little Debbie Cupcake Award, which she gratefully accepted from John York.

Please visit the NCETA website at www.ncenglishteacher.org for more information about the association and the Student Award programs.

I will be presenting the winning poems this coming week on my blog. That's when you will see why I fell in love with them and why I couldn't decide among the High School submissions and ended up declaring so many ties.

FIRST LIGHT: Student Poet Laureate Awards

Tomorrow is the big day, the day when the students who have won the second annual NC Student Laureate Poetry Awards will be recognized at the yearly conference of the North Carolina Engligh Teachers Association held at Caldwell Community College. These awards were established two years ago by my family as a way of bring poetry more into the student awards lineup at NCETA, thereby encouraging the reading and writing of poetry in our public schools.

The awards are given for the best poems by middle and high school students. John York is first readier and I am final judge, as each year's Poet Laureate will be. The student Laureates receive monetary awards, as well as books. This year they, their families, and assembled teachers will also be receiving a chapbook of the winning poems, First Light.

Here is the list of winners. You may find out more about NCETA's student writing contests by going to http://www.ncenglishteacher.org/. I will be posting the poems themselves, along with photos from the awards ceremony when I return on Saturday.

MIDDLE SCHOOL:First Place:C.J. Murphy“Where I Come From”W. Lincoln Middle

Second Place:Falecia Metcalf"The Rain"N. Buncombe Middle

Honorable Mention:Allie Sekulich“On the Ice”Charter Neuse Middle

HIGH SCHOOLFirst Place:Sarah Brady“Vocabulary Words”Holly Springs High, now at UNC

Erin Walklet“Agape”Cardinal Gibbons High

Second:Courtney Duckworth“Ode to Karen Dalton”R.L Patton High
Chelsea Hansen“Met Death”Penn-Griffin School
Maria Evans“A Breath”Leesville Rd. High, now at UNC-CH

Honorable Mention:

Allison Kupatt"Cult Classics"Enloe High School
Rachel Thompson“Aqua, Zephyr, Terra”Penn-Griffin
Amanda Honey“Runners”Carrboro High
Megan Przybyla"Summertime"Leesville Road High School