Chesterfield Arts High School Writing Contest

• Chesterfield Writers Guild
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Poetry

1st Place: Emily Bumpus "A New Day"

2nd Place: Joyce Hankins "Keep On"

3rd Place: Jessice Airey "A Challenge to Change"

Honorable Mentions: Lindsay Appleman "The Reach"; Meghan McCarter "Stirring"; Amanda Mehrsheikh "The Struggle"; Grace Mosley "At the Foot of the Awakening"; Rachel Park "Pause in Descent"; Emily Sisson "Invisible Chains"; Christopher Smith "The Dreamer"

 
Prose

1st Place: Jessica Puckett "My Grandfather's Clock"
2nd Place: Taylor Maxwell "Love/Life at First Sight"

 

"A New Day" by Emily Bumpus

The sun peeps through the clouds

It's a new day

With every day comes new life

And new death

One flower's soggy petals wilting in the dew

Another's bright roots piercing the soil

An awkaing of the emotions

Pain and happiness

The excitement of a fresh beginning

The joy of a pure, ignorant child

But there's sadness with death

As you wish you loved one goodbye, forever

With every ending comes a new beginning

 
 

"Response to the Awakening" by Joyce Hankins

You've been fighting for so long

it's painful, I know, but

                    keep on

                              keep on

because you are so close

to finding yourself

so close to seeing what life can be.

                   keep on

                              keep on

shake away the layers

of meaningless dirt

they are not a part of you now.

                   keep on

                              keep on

as several toes materailize

feel the texture of freedom.

                   keep on

                              keep on

two hands poke through:

touch the essence of truth.

                   keep on

                              keep on

an arm sprouts upward:

test the range of movement

that loosed chains give.

                   keep on

                              keep on

a leg springs forth:

stretch it out

prepare to stand up

for what you believe in.

                   keep on

                              keep on

your face emerges bravely.

use your new found voice

to proclaim.

all that had been silenced.

                   keep on

                              keep on

listen to the confidence

tat fresh air has endowed.

                   keep on

                              keep on

taste the liberating shafts of sunshine

                   keep on

                              keep on

and open your eyes.

 
 

"A Challenge to Change" by Jessica Airey

I sleep.

Surrounded by warmth and comfort,

ease and sober pressure, lying regally beneath

the earth the embraces me.

I gravely rest in this natural place.

Perhaps a sun rises and falls somewhere

Maybe it is far above, far away

Distantly a thought forms

But not here, never here

Cocooned in a sanctuary of memory and sod.

It will not be.

It cannot be.

I break.  Awakening.

Fingers grip the sky, clutch at the air.

I thrash against the wind.

Cold sweeps my skin

Strange and stunning

I am shocked by its chill, a stranger to this naked world

Exposed, I struggle, reaching and aching

My cries are swallowed, mouth opened dry and wide

My fingertips wet as the rain pierces me.

Never easy, always new, always foreign

Finally here, the pain is shockingly unfamiliar.

But it must be.

It will be.

I arise, alive at last.

I awake.

 

May it never be said of me that I slept on

While others rose, altering existence

Penning their names to change and challenge

Offering themselves to love, sacrifice, passion, dedication, work

Fighting fate, all effords to coldly echo warmth.

Who will wake?

Only the brave?

Only those with something to say?

Only those who bear a consuming grudge:

Only those whose self-destructiveness happens to coincide with noble generosity?

No, let us rise and be the awakening.

A stunning burst of morning

in a sleeping world, a change.