April is National Poetry Month! Founded in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month seeks to remind the public that poets serve an integral role in our cultural and literary history. Often labeled as the “difficult” writing genre, National Poetry Month works to encourage both the reading and writing of poems, provides resources for students and teachers, and raises awareness of practicing poets in local and national media. This year, the Poet Laureate for Indiana is our own Curtis Crisler, Professor of English at PFW! A judge for the regional Scholastic Writing Awards, Crisler plays an integral role in recognizing the next generation of local poets, including this year’s American Voices Nominee, Karen Chen.
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards is a regional and national competition for creative teens, aged 13-18, to enter their works of art and writing, including poetry, and receive opportunities for recognition, publication, and scholarships. These writers take on a myriad of issues, from politics to the self, to work through and make sense of the world around them; as a result, their writing is emotional, humorous, and true.
In celebration, we recognize one of our region’s American Voices Nominee’s in the 2024 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Karen Chen, whose poem Almost Winter received a Gold Key. Read, or listen to her read, her poem below:
Almost Winter
Poetry, Grade 12, Maumee Valley Country Day School
My
father sits
dying
in a car
in a McDonald’s parking lot,
the yellow arch above
flickering
like a halo.
Somewhere,
a cicada crawls
out of earth,
readies itself for sky.
I am in the backseat.
I am watching him unravel himself,
shift
from an immigrant heaving boxes
to a dad cradling a toddler
and then a father
and then mottled skin, and then clumps of hair
at his feet,
before he morphs
all the way back
into dust
like a shitty animation,
frames per second too fast.
I am watching him cry into a half-eaten burger,
telling him,
it’s okay,
Ba.
Don’t you be sorry.
Don’t you worry about us
while he flickers
from young to dust,
alive to dust,
my dad to dust
& a living ghost.
We talk like someday,
down the line,
he’s going to recover.
When I promise him
I’ll take care of everything
after the film stops,
I have no idea
what I mean.
I can only remember
that summer night
on the porch,
ice cream half-melted
and he is humming
the same Chinese song:
if one day
I am done
please bury me
in fields of spring
How do I tell him
we have both finished
long ago?
A cicada
mid-flight
yearns for soil
in a way only children
too old
can understand.
We are both dying in that car.
He is just
a few steps
ahead.