Miranda Dyson, Children’s Education Associate
Slow, intentional observation is a foundational skill in art appreciation and education. To stay with a work of art for more than a moment gives us a chance to ask questions that enhance our experience. What was the maker’s intention? Is there a story I’m being told? Does this resonate with my own experiences? Poetry also encourages readers to slow down and observe life from someone else’s perspective. This writing style is regarded as beautiful, intimidating, mysterious—an outlet to process emotions or unanswered questions.
In honor of National Poetry Month, we’re looking to student participants from our Scholastics Art and Writing Awards, 2025. Please enjoy this selection of writings by our region’s award recipients. You can also visit this link to purchase a hardcopy book of writings from our Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio writing award winners.
Rosa Morel, Poetry: and nothing happens | en tu imágen
I listen to a million
voices sing the same song
listening for signs of you
trying to hear your voice, the
timbre of your breath
sound of your words breaking
the whisper of your swift hand
when the wind wails
with a shudder through the clouds
raining down upon us when the sun tears our
skin apart.
pero en este momento,
no se pasa nada.
I await your return
like a frog sits on a lily pad
the skies will open up
and soon, it will be upon us
the storm, the shakes, the wrath of the earth
all will remind us of our mistakes.
but until then
you don’t reply
I will be here, I guess.
I still won’t know the reasons why
no se pasa nada.
en tu imagen,
ves el otro
en mi imagen,
te ve
when will I stop feeling the need
to translate your every word to me?
when I stare you down and you meet my eye,
¿por qué no pasa nada?
this woman only speaks to me in spanish.
she visits me in my mind
she says, “cállate, mija,”
and bids me sweetly goodnight.
like the mirror of my mother,
like the aunt I never had
like i remember someone older and wiser,
like there’s a trace of something still to be had.
but i open my mouth and point to my eyes
and plead to her with my hands
why, sweet mother, why, sweet friend,
¿no se pasa nada?
and when, in the morning, I awaken
me dice que no hay nunca más.
que aquí, en este mundo,
I’ll be happy and free at last.
and when you look at me again
and run your phantom fingers through my hair,
you’ll gently whisper in my ear
“todo está bien, chica.
no pasa nada.”
I am like
a piece of driftwood
wandering on the angry sea
with no place except a mirage
like one of those lost souls of old
yet to find a shore of tranquility.
I am like
a piece of sea-glass
quietly molded and carved
with no home except a memory
like those who lie in the grass
unknown except for their art.
I am like
a piece of driftwood
finally washed up on shore
exposed to the wind and waves
exposed to the wrath of yore.
I am like
a piece of sea-glass
finally settled on the seabed below
or waiting in the stomach of a bass
for my message in a bottle to unfurl.
Isabelle Ebert, Humor: The Essay
I’ve raised seven ospreys, two snakes, and a wombat;
The Renaissance Faire loves my hand-to-hand combat.
On weekends I unwind with PVP knitting;
I only eat cupcakes in more than one sitting.
I made wings to fly like a vampire bat;
If I try really hard I can talk to my cat.
Brook Shields once told me my eyebrows were pretty;
I got a cool key when I saved Gotham City.
The “the” left Facebook on my recommendation;
I compose operettas for light recreation.
I showed Gordon Ramsay his cooking is bland;
I’ve reeled in a sunfish with only one hand.
I built my own airplane and flew it to Rome;
I went back in time and beat Balto to Nome.
I created the first modern sci-fi convention;
I learned mountaineering to blow off some tension.
Last year I became the world pickleball champ;
I’m on the shortlist for the new postage stamp.
If I sit in a dark room my skin starts to glow;
I taught Nancy Reagan the way to say no.
My wicker recanings are known through the world;
My hair is both pin straight and perfectly curled.
I’ve waded knee deep through the depths of the ocean;
I helped Steven Tyler compose Sweet Emotion.
I’ve married the same couple seventeen times;
I have six thousand dollars in unminted dimes.
I hear silent movies (the diction is poor);
I climbed a skyscraper, and then I climbed more.
When I play chutes and ladders I win every time;
I’m the only known jockey to stop on a dime.
At night I don’t sleep- I turn into a ghost;
I hold the world record for most toasty toast.
I’m the friend that Victoria trusts with her secret;
I make patchwork quilts for my Medium Egret.
I read War and Peace in a single weekend;
There’s no pair of nylons that I cannot mend.
I can stand on the drum line with uncovered ears;
I’ve made a credenza from palm fronds and gears.
I know ASL and can speak it out loud;
I earned a small grant to go study a cloud.
I fuse Scottish cooking with French and Jamaican;
I’m just one degree from my pal Kevin Bacon.
I’m America’s third-largest millet importer;
I scored Lacrimosa for bass and recorder.
I’ve published a cookbook of halibut scones;
I’m a part-time matchmaker for fans of the Stones.
I memorized pi to 1001 places;
I keep my shoes on with no Velcro or laces.
The Montgolfier brothers bought alum from me;
I once helped Roy Lichtenstein out of a tree.
I’ve played Hamlet and Caesar and Henry and Lear;
I can cut pounds of onions with nary a tear.
I’ve swum through a stairway and climbed up a lake;
I clean my whole house with a rag and a rake.
I’ve saved a giraffe from a large vat of glue;
Had it not been for me, the White House would be blue.
My brain contains vast, multitudinous knowledge;
I’m begging you, please let me into your college.
Junxin Tang, Poetry: Red Patch
When I was knitting,
I was concerned about the fabric,
how its hues never fuse.
My hands trembled at the tip of the needle,
often it suckled, jubilantly,
my fragile, ruby tissues.
Am-a said, when the textures are the same,
you shall not be concerned about weaving them,
through the slit, you could weave white silk with clouds.
/
Instead of slithering the silver through loops,
I returned to the sewing machine;
on the wobbly chair, my fingers thrummed with each thump of
the needle. Am-a soothed her wounds through the machinery after the war —
her left hand void of nimble grips,
her right eye deprived of broken lights.
Still, her tender fingers on the other working hand, along with her feet,
entwined mottled cloths to make butterflies
at dusks teemed with chatters.
/
The soldiers stormed to the porch,
spitting guns with shells like stones
fallen from the sky.
On the other side of the lonely wall sit A-ma,
her hands to her eyes, trembling to weave the scarlet with whites
like pure milkflower petals blinding her from a midsummer dream.
The day she started to mother the fields, whom sunk deep with her cries
& bowed & prayed with her in early fall winds.
The day she started to weave, to grasp her life & others before her in the
makings of meanings.
/
The red yarn in the sewing tray
melted in thin air, & snuggled
the cold worktable of A-ma. I was bewildered,
for red in blue is carnage in the sea,
for red in white is death, bleeding —
A-ma said, to weave, is to fold your life,
your wants & other insignificant things to the best page.
Red in yellow, a blossoming rose in a desert,
Red in white, flourishing newbirths in the mother’s lap.
Red for me, her remorseful smile, is the missing
parts of my soul — the wound rippling in her
memories.
/
The hems on my fabrics reddened the dusk
of a winter day in 2021 — the red yarn sat dull
& unlit in the trey.
A butterfly landed on her collar, different shades
of hues, fusing, colliding, & leaping —
Did she weave herself with butterflies
Or has the butterfly woven itself into her life?
I don’t know, but I started to think
the red is a blessing, a cheer for
a beautiful life.
Abigail Walker, Poetry: Icarus, the boy who flew
His story is remembered as a tragedy,
A somber tale of a young boy,
Too consumed with arrogance to listen to his father.
His name is scorned across a thousand tongues who whisper,
“Don’t fly too high, keep your feet on the ground; you don’t want to end up like him”
The same tongues that shame Icarus will tell you to “reach for you dreams but keep them at a distance”
So you will not burn.
They do not realize that Icarus had been trapped for 16 years, fiercely longing to experience the outside world
They do not know that his dream had always been in front of him, just out of reach
They do not know that those wings had been his saving grace
He had felt the spray of the sea against his skin,
The wind mussing his hair.
He had soared above the clouds,
Drunk on the exhilaration of freedom.
He did not hesitate; he set his eyes on the mighty, burning chariot of Helios.
His fingers brushed the golden surface
Helios smiled, eyes as warm as the sun
He whispered,
“Well done, my child.”
The wind tore at his clothes.
The sea rushed at him.
But he was not afraid.
Even as his wings broke apart.
Even as his father called out to him.
Even as he plummeted to his certain death.
He had touched the sun.
When someone tells of the tragedy of his fall,
Do not be disheartened.
Because before he fell,
He flew.
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