Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Annual Teen Poetry Contest 2020!

Group 1
1st Place: Beautiful by Rosie L.
2nd Place: The Monster I Am by Inshal K.

Group 2:
1st Place: Ebb and Flow by Penelope D.
2nd Place: Sun and Moon by Alice L.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their poems this year and look for our Teen Poetry Contest next year in April 2021. Here are your winning poems:

Group 1 – 1st Place: Beautiful by Rosie L.
She hated her eyes.
They were the colour of mud;
Dark and dirty.
Oh how she yearned,
For eyes as blue as the sky,
And as deep as the sea.
Ocean eyes that men drowned in.
She couldn’t see the gold flecks
That sparkled when she smiled.
Nor the pools of honey,
Oozing and melting in the light.
She hated her hair;
Coal black and straight as sticks;
Drab and boring.
She looked longingly at the girls
with the voluminous curls,
And the long, sloping lockes,
Woven into gold by the sun.
She ignored the way
Light bounced off her own strands
Forming a perfect halo,
For a fallen earth angel.
She hated her skin,
Tan and covered with acne.
Instead she wished for a complexion
So clear and pale as snow.
Just like the princesses
She read about as a little girl.
Once again, she didn’t notice
The smattering of stars across her nose.
Or the pair of dimples
That pierced her cheeks.
She found flaws everywhere,
Covering her from head to toe.
Like bruises that wouldn’t fade,
No matter how hard she tried.
She hated every part of herself.
But for the same reasons she was beautiful.

Group 1 – 2nd Place: The Monster I Am – A Woman by Inshal K.
It began with the claws.
What the world gave to them,
spoon-fed applesauce on
silver platters,
I learned to take.
Gnarled and long,
it hated them
Then the scales, that grew as I did
shiny, sharp
They lightened my load
Straight shoulders, chin up
The world’s grip loosened
With blood-streaked fingers, it learned to let me go
The fangs appeared when it said,
“You’d be prettier if you smiled more.”
Not that kind of grin
The rest came easy,
was halfway there already
The longer I stayed, the harder
it made me
Like a knife
wearing away at me
Only made me sharper
It thought it was cutting me,
breaking me
But I am a plant
and that was only pruning
Because do not misunderstand me
I do not blame the world for making me
the monster I am
I thank it

Group 2 – 1st Place: Ebb and Flow by Penelope D.
I cannot explain why
Flowers bloom
Mountains rise
Animals evolve.
Gifted with a world of wonder
When before
Nothing existed.
Since leaving the warmth of
My mother’s womb
I have learned
There is
A constant pendulum of
Creation and destruction.
Seas ebb and flow.
Skyscrapers stand atop
Ruins of ancient civilizations.
Seeds adrift expand floral colonies,
Rooting in their ancestors’ dust.
Even when something
Remains exactly where I left it,
It is not beyond change.
If just because I remember
Differently.
My hometown
Once abuzz with commerce
Idles as a quiet haven
Of solace and memory.
And like all else, I am Changed

Group 2 – Sun and Moon by Alice L.
We are the sun and moon:
Lovers living on opposite sides of Earth
Trying to find our way back to each other.
The other planets say we’re too different,
And that two opposites cannot form a composite.
But who cares what Mars and Jupiter say,
They’re stupider than us
If they think they can break our link.
As the time pass,
I get closer and closer to you.
But the Earth, like an overprotective mother,
Stands between us,
Preventing me from seeing you.
There are days when I forget
About all our fond memories
And I wished we’ve never met.
But when I try to forget you
It’s like trying to forget a piece of me,
Like trying to forget this reality,
Like trying to forget how to breathe.
I wonder if forgetting is as hard for you
Is as hard as it is for me.
I wonder if in the end,
We can make it through
All these trials and tribulations the universe threw.
I wonder if we were free of our duties,
Would we be happy?
I shouldn’t be thinking of this
Because we cannot co-exist.
I am night and you are day,
A fact I should not resist.
Then again,
True love in this universe always finds a way
To be, and be beautiful.
Set me free with the kiss that I’ve been longing,
Hold me in the arms I belong in.
With the meeting of our lips,
We create the eclipse;
We are the sun and moon.