Columbia Granger's World of Poetry®
2021 Student Poetry Contest Winners
2021 Student Poetry Contest Winners
In celebration of National Poetry Month, Columbia University Press is pleased to announce the three winners and one honorable mention in the fifth annual Columbia Granger's World of Poetry® Student Poetry Contest.
WINNING POEMS
"Regrettable Banter with a Taxidermist"
by Marie Yamamoto of Northern Valley Old Tappan High School, New Jersey,
inspired by "Life Cycle of Common Man" by Howard Nemerov
and stretchy skin aside it’d still be hard
to capture your likeness.
Maybe with the right armature I could
Really accentuate your ferocity-
Back hunched over,
Armed poised, fingers splayed-
as you grasp for
your morning cup of coffee.
You’d be perfect for a museum diorama with
nice oak furniture,
dirty laundry,
and a little radio for your show tunes.
Riveting, right?
I’m not the type who’d want to
glue a unicorn horn or
a dog’s hind legs to you
posthumously. I like to capture animals as they were-
Bucks, forever locked in combat,
Rabbits suspended in the jaws of wolves-
That treatment wouldn’t give you enough credit
for all you do. You’re not just
Surviving, it’s a different battle.
Trapped in this monotonous cycle of
eating, working, sleeping, and waking,
you often grapple with its meaning but carry on anyway-
And your final, hope-fueled legacy- it’s fascinating, my friend.
Certainly hard to imply in a singular pose.
So no, I can’t do that.
Or, wait, were you joking?
----------------
by Defne Duru Arat of the Robert College of Istanbul,
inspired by “Silence” by Marianne Moore
My father was never born.
His flesh, a mere collection of what’s left of fate,
the remnants of damned past and it’s hazy blood stains.
Crafted by ancestors and fellow cursed alike,
he is a simple being of time,
running on a prehistoric clock that works in the light of impulse.
He eats.
His best work, I am his successor,
waiting ravenously at the dining room to be fed with the blessings of the pure,
the bones of the shameless.
Pride bleeds a poisonous blood,
I eat.
The genes bastard got bestowed upon me at the ripe age of twelve,
according to tradition, when he left my mother for a new victim.
Think of it as a celebration rather than a kick in the womb.
We eat.
“For the memory of the things we can’t talk,
we can’t share,
but feel…”
Descending down from a prayer,
me,
my father,
and God,
we sit together,
in an empty room,
to eat something that will never arrive.
----------------
"Embers"
by Gabrielle Brihn of North Royalton High School, Ohio
inspired by “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost.
Blackened marshmallows lie upon blackened ash.
They are the same: dead matter that whispers curses at the match long gone.
I have watched the sparks settle into stars that form stories
distorted by lines slashed through them.
I have long peered through a lens of my own creation,
a pocket of clear sky, a solace that is only
created from destruction.
It is hazy as I squint at the stars through the smoke, a mirage of perfection;
the forest is best seen through stained-glass smoke.
The smell of sugar and pine nudges the air,
and I wonder how the fire never gets tired of dancing...
the scene flickers. I am surely burning too,
parts of me drifting with the lingering smoke
into clouds freckled with light and darkness.
An owl flits through heaven-reaching branches,
carrying in his claws the remnants of life,
narrowly missing the dimly-lit wisps that may be smoke, or fog,
or broken stars leaking light onto the world.
----------------
HONORABLE MENTION
"My home in Arkansas"
by Aly Moosa of Colleyville Heritage High School, Texas,
inspired by "My Arkansas" by Maya Angelou
My home knows a relentless brooding.
Ceiling tiles like dried
honeycombs, their queens: guillotined,
turning bodies to black ash.
Red rock and wood
are meshed into the
floor like
Noah’s Ark,
glazed with a charred maroon.
Sun enters the room like kaleidoscope,
jagged and fierce,
And,
in the flight, shadows are eclipsed, and out-shined.
Shunned at dawn as the sky cries for
dusk, light no longer sleeps in my
sanctuary. All things disappear
in the dark yet
tomorrow
fills today like
white noise, but not enough to
balance the air
with sonder. Unlike
vignette vines,
My home in Arkansas only
tells one story.
It never ends or seems to begin,
like charcoal that won’t become
white or brittle.
It aches in the mundane
flames of brooding: a fire
that never turns cold.
by Gabrielle Brihn of North Royalton High School, Ohio
inspired by “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost.
Blackened marshmallows lie upon blackened ash.
They are the same: dead matter that whispers curses at the match long gone.
I have watched the sparks settle into stars that form stories
distorted by lines slashed through them.
I have long peered through a lens of my own creation,
a pocket of clear sky, a solace that is only
created from destruction.
It is hazy as I squint at the stars through the smoke, a mirage of perfection;
the forest is best seen through stained-glass smoke.
The smell of sugar and pine nudges the air,
and I wonder how the fire never gets tired of dancing...
the scene flickers. I am surely burning too,
parts of me drifting with the lingering smoke
into clouds freckled with light and darkness.
An owl flits through heaven-reaching branches,
carrying in his claws the remnants of life,
narrowly missing the dimly-lit wisps that may be smoke, or fog,
or broken stars leaking light onto the world.
----------------
HONORABLE MENTION
"My home in Arkansas"
by Aly Moosa of Colleyville Heritage High School, Texas,
inspired by "My Arkansas" by Maya Angelou
My home knows a relentless brooding.
Ceiling tiles like dried
honeycombs, their queens: guillotined,
turning bodies to black ash.
Red rock and wood
are meshed into the
floor like
Noah’s Ark,
glazed with a charred maroon.
Sun enters the room like kaleidoscope,
jagged and fierce,
And,
in the flight, shadows are eclipsed, and out-shined.
Shunned at dawn as the sky cries for
dusk, light no longer sleeps in my
sanctuary. All things disappear
in the dark yet
tomorrow
fills today like
white noise, but not enough to
balance the air
with sonder. Unlike
vignette vines,
My home in Arkansas only
tells one story.
It never ends or seems to begin,
like charcoal that won’t become
white or brittle.
It aches in the mundane
flames of brooding: a fire
that never turns cold.
