Autumn Festival Poetry Competition 2021
School Year’s 8-10 Category
Winner
Botherhood and Dice
Written by Siddarth Lakhiani
The boy rolled dice
his brothers found unworthy.
The boy moved pawns
his brothers thought too slow.
The boy raced for affection
his brothers concluded too desperate.
So in board games and cowardice,
grew compliance and avoidance.
The boy rolled dice
his brothers judged weighted.
The boy moved pawns
his brothers saw inappropriate.
The boy chased the love
his brothers withheld too harshly.
So in board games and boldness
grew competition and resentment.
The brothers rolled dice
he found unworthy.
The brothers moved pawns
he thought too slow.
The brothers raced for affection
he concluded too desperate.
So in board games and acrimony
grew a fractured understanding of brotherhood.
The dice were left dormant,
unrolled and untouched.
The brothers left each other unspoken,
unheard and unexpressed.
Their branches separated far from games
and towards ambitions far from home.
Their solaces were found in malcontent,
their dissatisfaction born of ungratefulness.
It wasn’t until the brothers were older,
speaking in honest tune with one another,
they realized that equals never became them,
and humility was accepting loss as breath-inevitable.
Their pride flew them into each other,
bolstering their stillness and altruism.
The boy and his brothers rolled the dice
and found a welcome brotherhood in acknowledgment.
Judge Charlie Durante’s comments:
“The central motif of this very clever poem is how the relationship between brothers is likened to a game of chance where moves are dictated by a roll of dice. Pawns make us conjure up a complicated game of chess or draughts, but the dice point to board games where there is always an element of the unpredictable. Likewise, the brothers’ affection fluctuates, sometime binding them together, sometime leading to a ‘fractured understanding.’ There are moments when the players are probably cheating (the boy rolled dice/his brothers thought weighted); they also abstain from playing, estranged from one another. The subtle game reflects the vicissitudes of brotherly love until, with the coming of maturity, honesty and humility, altruism becomes the mainstay of their relationship. It is the ever-changing nature of the brothers’ feelings for one another that gives the poem its emotional impetus. A very sophisticated poem and a worthy winner in this category.”
Runner up
Screenagers
Written by Siena May Lee
Down in minutes, out for hours.
No screen time – silence to devour.
The day two billion faces dropped; fingers paused.
Social media disappeared, but what was the cause?
Six hours of disarray,
The reason – a glitch.
But was it ….or society with an itch?
A planetary scale demonstration,
The domination of our very station.
The classroom door was opened with dread.
“Oh, thank goodness. We thought you were dead!!!”.
Cries of despair, relief, and outrage.
The punishment and cruelty to disengage.
The world just stopped, time ticking.
The chaos was transmitting.
“I felt so lonely last night.”
“Hashtag-I feel so uptight.”
“I’m more popular online.”
“Tag bf-you’re still mine?”.
“My heart felt so empty!
Nothing to fill me with likes”.
“What do I do with no filter?”,
“Disconnected, bewilder”.
Breakups and makeups
No dopamine hits
Addicted to opinion,
Paranoia, conflicts
Waiting behind our screens, our life to perform
A filter once more, a return to the norm.
Judge Charlie Durante’s comments:
Siena has constructed a wonderful poem, Screenagers, about the crashing of all social media platforms, a communication disaster, which took place not that long ago. This global crisis is felt mainly by the young, who have grown up in a world where we are all interconnected, and being online is as essential as breathing. Teenagers have become ‘screenagers’. The poem is effectively a confession of how disconcerting and bewildering it is when technology lets us down. Emotions are stirred, loneliness becomes bitter, and our real life depends on the messages and information we are fed. Our personality is constructed from the hum and whirr of media interaction. This is a light-hearted poem, but with a serious underlying message. Well done, Siena.
Highly Commended
The Teen
Written by Michael Piris
Bored!
Nothing to do!
No longer a child.
Not yet an adult.
Imprisoned in my own head.
Angry!
Furious at what?
At anything and everyone
Emotions wild.
Out of control.
Unstable!
A roller coaster of sensations.
Sudden triggers.
Hormones fully charged.
Lazy!
Sleep deprivation.
Cranky and obnoxious.
Life just getting in the way.
My bed safe paradise.
Starving!
Insatiable appetite, growth spirt.
Never enough, eating non stop.
When will it end?
My hunger is unexplained.
With the mystery of adulthood which lies ahead.
Judge Charlie Durante’s comments:
“Adolescence is a difficult time for most of us: we feel disorientated, callow, driven by inexplicable feelings; our bodies start to rebel and we are powerless to control them. Still, it’s only a transition period-if managed wisely, it should lead to a stable, happy adulthood. Michael’s The Teen centres on the key issues involved: boredom, unexplained anger, hormonal imbalance, lethargy and a rampant gluttony. The technique of having one word at the beginning of each verse gives the poem a pleasing structure and allows the writer to explore the implications of those single words. It requires a certain amount of self-knowledge to examine oneself during this critical period and Michael’s poem conveys this new self-awareness. It augurs well for his entry into full adulthood. A very enjoyable poem indeed.”