Poetry Contest for New Jersey High School Students
Winner & Honorable Mentions Announcement
Winner & Honorable Mentions Announcement
We are happy to announce the winner and two honorable mentions for our first annual contest. Assisted by Map Literary staff, the contest judge -- Howard Steng -- is a high school English teacher who has served as an Adjunct Professor of Taijiquan and writing. His received his undergraduate degree in English with honors from Temple University and a permanent teaching certificate from from the State of New Jersey at Montclair State University. Later, Howard went on to complete a MA and MFA from William Paterson University. Howard is currently the studio manager at the Warwick Pottery Studio in Warwick, NY where he is developing his own line of clay works and is working on a third collection of poetic works, Imagination Interrupted: Poems from the Pandemic.
And the winning poem is...
"Portrait of Girl as Monkey King" by Heather Qin
I, too, could turn into seventy-two different things.
This is freedom, unfiltered. Boy running down
the splintered street, plowing through fruit stands, shooting
squirrels out of trees. I didn’t check for cars before I crossed
the street. I cleaved through the night with streetlights shouting
my name, courage bursting like a fistful of flowers. Street
camera illuminating my face, I stuck my tongue out and
laughed and laughed. My greatest ambition was to turn
meteorite in retrograde, barreling toward infinity—then, girls will
be girls, unafraid of touch. I spray-painted the church
with graffiti as I walked a girl home, and she clutched
my arm like a searchlight, afraid of the dark. I, too, used to be
afraid, whittling night down to its ghosts. Another time I played
god, filled the new church in town, prayers lining my teeth gold. Tongue
furnished with worship. When a man prayed for good harvest, I applauded
his patience, watching his faith grow to outlast the winter. So it would
separate my body from desire. I grew accustomed
to falsetto: living beyond my means. The night I came home without
costume, I searched my face for blood. My accent sheathing
its dull blade: girl only useful when found.
And the winning poem is...
"Portrait of Girl as Monkey King" by Heather Qin
I, too, could turn into seventy-two different things.
This is freedom, unfiltered. Boy running down
the splintered street, plowing through fruit stands, shooting
squirrels out of trees. I didn’t check for cars before I crossed
the street. I cleaved through the night with streetlights shouting
my name, courage bursting like a fistful of flowers. Street
camera illuminating my face, I stuck my tongue out and
laughed and laughed. My greatest ambition was to turn
meteorite in retrograde, barreling toward infinity—then, girls will
be girls, unafraid of touch. I spray-painted the church
with graffiti as I walked a girl home, and she clutched
my arm like a searchlight, afraid of the dark. I, too, used to be
afraid, whittling night down to its ghosts. Another time I played
god, filled the new church in town, prayers lining my teeth gold. Tongue
furnished with worship. When a man prayed for good harvest, I applauded
his patience, watching his faith grow to outlast the winter. So it would
separate my body from desire. I grew accustomed
to falsetto: living beyond my means. The night I came home without
costume, I searched my face for blood. My accent sheathing
its dull blade: girl only useful when found.
|
Heather Qin (she/her) is a high school junior from New Jersey. Her work has been recognized by the New York Times, Columbia College Chicago, and Hollins University, and can be found or forthcoming in Sine Theta Magazine, Pidgeonholes, and Diode, among others. She is an alumni of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, an incoming mentee at the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship, and edits for her school newspaper and literary magazine. Besides writing, Heather loves classical music, reading, and watching soccer games.
|
Honorable Mentions:
"Haraboji in the backyard" by Gia Shin
& now Haraboji is hunched over in the backyard planting
perilla leaves. His translucent
skin hangs loosely over bone, rib juts out
from tattered white tank, & ugly purple crocs
swallow his feet. Purple crocuses
stain the wrong side of his face. I am
proving
to Haraboji I am a True American
Girl. I am a sparkly cheerleader &
learned English conjugations from scratch & I don’t plant perilla leaves--
I don’t even eat perilla.
I stop speaking to Haraboji because the radioactive
purple is too pissed to handle. The splotch
on his face is God’s angry doing.
& now, years later, our leaves are withered & Haraboji is uprooted
from this American soil & I don’t answer his evergreen calls.
Sometimes, I wish my Fenty-coated lips
could string together an apology for Haraboji
but they’re too busy swallowing
the shrieks of white boys.
|
Gia Shin (she/her) is a high school senior from Tenafly, New Jersey. Her works have been recognized by The Incandescent Review and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards as an American Voices Nominee. She has attended the Iowa Young Writers Studio, Kenyon Young Writers Workshop, Princeton Hyphens Collective, and Kelly Writers House. Gia is also the Co-Editor-in-Chief of her school newspaper and Co-Editor of her school’s literary magazine.
|
"If New York City was a gas fire" by Mikayla Smith
I wouldn’t be a cool shade of blue.
I wouldn’t be able to bleed
and make a good Bloody Mary,
or sit in Joe’s Pizza in azure smoke
and live or die for the copper
taste of penniless lips
as they silently shiver outside.
I am not a cool girl blue–
a “see you later,” “get over it” shade
of Columbus Ave’s smooth jazz and poetry.
I am not cool ‘Girl Blue.’
I can look and see the Curacao
at Baby’s All Right, but the blue
I feel is rotten, gooey and bone-deep.
There are no songs
about being an unproductive,
rocky shoreline in Newport
smack in the middle of hellfire paradise–
There are no songs for funeral dress
and pen-breaking, sickly shades
of a muddy small-town Morris County blue
that’s really more dirty than sweet
and salty like hyacinths.
If I could bottle up New York City
I’d sip it like black coffee–
but I’ve never been cool enough
to skip milk and sugar.
If New York City was golden,
I’d be a fake gold medalist
pleading with the embassy of
whatever country, desperately
wanting to swim laps in the big-girl pool,
knowing it’s pointless–
because if New York City was a gas fire,
I wouldn’t be a cool shade of blue.
|
Mikayla Smith is a Senior at Kinnelon High School in Kinnelon, NJ, and will be studying Creative Writing at Connecticut College next fall. She is an avid member of her school's Gay-Straight Alliance and frequently stirs the pot in casual conversation. Her favorite activities include writing poetry, making people uncomfortable, and gossiping with her mother. Her favorite writers are Sylvia Plath and Donna Tartt; she identifies with spunky women. Mikayla can be seen reading The Secret History at disturbing and often inappropriate times of the day. She enjoys writing about baseball, relationships that miserably failed, and warrior nuns.
|
Again, we want to thank everyone for participating! We had such a big turnout!
Be sure to stay tuned for next year's writing contest – in short fiction.
