Below are the top-scoring poems in this category, which were evaluated by a panel of judges including Jim Ferris, Sandra Rivers-Gill, and Haley Taylor.
To read more poems, return here.
Grace Butler
43558
years before my car
i had a
bike and two best friends.
a carryout down the street
and a wish that summer might never end
Angelina Sanders
43623
inside the library where
many come for
warmth, i still see the girl
napping in
local historical section.
Kennedi Jones
43609
Can you hear trains
creaking, rattling, clanging
on this summer night, no sleep
*crickets*
let’s ride the trains out to who knows where
Avery Thompson
43551
Beyond pale peeling walls
and dusty windows,
you’ll see in its throat—
warmth, family, breathing deeply, our—
home.
Emily Chisholm
43609
Snowflake on tiger’s tongue
Grey morning sky
Zookeeper watches her breath before visitors
(mostly children)
Arrive to see the white-coated wolves enjoy freezing bliss.
Colin Scherer
43620
This soggy soaked ceiling
drips, dropping water
into a collection of buckets waiting
down below
–
Kennedi Jones
43609
the glass city perched
on the river
and still you have not shattered
(instead)
you’re glistening in the sun for all to see
Scott Lime
43612
When we were 12,
the neighborhood kids
and I buried our wishes before
they
moved away.
Mia Westfere
43614
Invisible buildings scatter sunlight.
Blue skies uninhibited:
Promises of glory standing full height
Triumphant
Over otherwise desolate crossroads
Avery Thompson
43551
Scuffed sidewalk shoulders silently.
What it remembers:
Blue metal screeching, wheels stopping
Capsized limbs, the taste of
red.
Nicholas D’Amico
43617
I wake up to
Sounds of basketball.
A bustling street in the background.
Sweating.
Kids playing into the early night.
Laine Brown
43430
Twenty pound seed sack
Two bird feeders
Emptied week after week
Fat singing birds
(Whistle)
Xandria Browning
43560
Motor bikes and bumble
Bees, somebody’s grandfather
Laughs so hard it fills
The ice cream shop we love
—
