Award-Winning Poems 2009
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2009 Border Voices Poetry Fair
Elementary, Middle & High School
First Place, Elementary School
This poem also received a
Special Award
from the Greater San Diego Council of Teachers of English
Cloth Dolls
(Hoko - Ningyo) Inspired by a photo
She stares at me.
Her stiff salmon-colored robe hangs
on a wooden rack behind her.
This woman seems loose, the man tight.
They have small mouths and sleepy eyes.
He wears a white cloth around his head
and a rope around his waist. Her hair
is black. He is bald.
Their arms are outstretched as if
waiting to embrace. Yet,
they can’t see each other.
Instead, they peer
through the open door. There,
a man and woman kneel in a garden.
Her robe is flowery green, splashed
with orange, his, a silk blue.
He holds a sword, she wears a crown.
Nathaniel Pick
Grade 5, Spreckels Elementary
Poet-Teacher: Seretta Martin
Classroom Teacher: Janet Weigel
“Cloth Dolls” was inspired by Japanese dolls
at the Mengi Museum in Balba Park, San Diego, CA
Second Place, Elementary School
Hot Pink
Hot pink is a bright chair
in a beauty shop
with pink hair brushes
and pink rubber bands.
In spring, hot pink sounds like
hair dryers and women,
with their pink lip gloss and curlers,
chatting about love and passion.
Tania Garcia-Acosta
Grade 3, Spreckels Elementary
Poet-Teacher: Celia Sigmon
Classroom Teacher: Mike French
Third Place, Elementary School
The Buddha
In Japan, a Buddha lazily gazes
at the bustling crowd. He looks down
at the lively town with patient and watchful eyes.
Emerging from behind thriving green leaves,
his bronze hair curls like noodles.
Stretched long below the nose,
his enormous ears hang.
Decorated with swirly garnishes,
his face is stone blue.
Behind him, a branch winds around,
leaving a magical walkway
from Japan to America. The scene resembles
a mysterious forest inhaling secrets.
Hidden in the flourishing green leaves are messages.
All are devoted to Buddha, each
a different mystery from all over the world.
Helen Tang
Grade 4, Spreckels Elementary
Poet-Teacher: Celia Sigmon
Classroom Teacher: Peggy Araiza
First Place, Middle School
This poem also received a
Special Award
from the Greater San Diego Council of Teachers of English
The Woman of the Ocean
I want you to see the dark colors.
I want you to see a strong and smoky storm
wide waves smashing in the air.
I want you to notice
as the water spins a statue
a woman’s cracked face emerges.
Her eyes gleam like twilight
seaweed hangs from her head
like wrinkled hair.
I want you to see the sadness in the woman
with eyes that droop like dog ears.
I want you to imagine.
Saith Bravo Ruiz
Grade 6, Lincoln Acres School
Poet-Teacher: Johnnierenee Nelson
Classroom Teacher: Yvonne Langarica
Second Place, Middle School
Standing in Front of Crowds
Shyness follows me everywhere I go
the hooded jacket, dark as coal,
covers her face.
She doesn’t talk in class
just sits, avoiding eye contact.
“Get some friends, participate more,” I tell her.
Shyness doesn’t reply. Remains silent.
Her mouth, a closed zipper.
She never speaks to anyone.
Nothing comes from her mouth
no murmur, no sigh.
She walks far behind groups of students
always runs away when people get close.
She hides behind buildings avoiding everyone.
Shyness always stands in the back
or in dark places, where no one can see her, motionless.
Her hands are pale like an ill person’s skin
because no sunlight can reach them.
Shyness follows me everywhere I go.
Leyna Arroyo
Grade 7, Farb Middle School
Poet-Teacher: Johnnierenee Nelson
Classroom Teacher: Alison Nayoski
Third Place, Middle School
Mauschen
I watch my mom as she throws spices into the pot.
The German Schnitzel is finally ready.
“Komm Jetz,” she calls to my dad, brother and me.
We all take our seats at the table.
She serves the schnitzel to us.
Tyler and I stuff the food into our mouths.
She warns us by saying
“If I cooked the way you ate, you would have left the table
in disgust by now.” And for the thousandth time,
she lectures us on how to hold the fork and knife.
At last, our stomachs are filled up from the sehr gut meal.
I ask to be excused so I can get ready for bed.
I lay waiting for my mom to come tuck me in
and when I’m just about to be swept up by dreams,
she comes in, kisses me and says
“Du bist mein mauschen.” You are my mouse.
“Du bist mein leibchen.” You are my love.
“Du bist mein kind.” You are my child.
“Gute nacht.”
Alisha Crouch
Grade 7, Rancho Santa Fe Middle School
Poet-teacher: Jackleen Holton
Classroom teacher: Alison Murphy
*Schnitzel: German breaded chicken
Komm Jetz: come now
Sehr gut: very good
Gute nacht: good night
First Place, High School
This poem also received a
Special Award
from the Greater San Diego Council of Teachers of English
Sampaguita
We string together our time
like we string together Sampaguita
Delicate, white flowers
making a long, beautiful chain
like that of all the days we’ve spent
together
Days like scattered white flowers
on green, green grass
The sun wrapping its yellow rays
around the earth
The wind blowing your long, gray hair
swaying, swaying with the garden greenery
The aroma from the Sampaguita on your cheeks,
wrinkled with age, I kiss them as thanks
Thanks for stringing together our lives
as sweetly as we string together
delicate, white
Sampaguita
Joanna Robles
Grade 10, Morse High School
Poet-teacher: Jackleen Holton
Classroom Teacher: Cynthia Larkin
Second Place, High School
This poem also received a
Special Award
from the Greater San Diego Council of Teachers of English
We Need to Talk
I’m sorry, Poetry.
Things aren’t
working out.
Your creativity
is mind-blowing,
but it’s not
you, it’s me.
Justine Macasadia
Grade 10, Morse High
Poet-Teacher: Jackleen Holton
Classroom Teacher: Cynthia Larkin
Third Place, High School
Lover Weather
Days of comfort, of sheepskin pillows
and whatever kind of tea
is in the house, days where the sky
is close and cold and has nothing on it.
How lovers sit on the floor of their
living rooms as if their fireplaces
worked, as if their candles were hand-
rolled, as if it were again the 1920s....
As if they were Francis Scott and Zelda
but with a wedding-end and not a fire.
The lovers’ aging parents know not
where their children are, what they do, on this
separate coast—what they read.
The piano they’re hosting while Lizzy
moves into her new place sits across
from the corner where the bookshelves will go,
where soon the written pages will be.
Hers are the lovely drowned goddesses while his
are the Russian and German thinkers with names
one must practice before saying,
all still in their brown boxes in the kitchen.
What follows in lover weather are days
of silent reading, the consigned green-gold
couch soft beneath them. She gives him Hamlet,
he gives her Kierkegaard; they read.
without speaking together, the books of each,
as if from the words came something
tantric and innate, as if there could be found
answers to why the cold, the tea, the piano,
why the intangible music of it.
Kayla Krut
Grade 12, The Bishop’s School
Poet-Teacher: Brandon Cesmat
Classroom Teacher: Robert Mulgrew
LoVerne Wilson Brown
Scholarship Awards
Adobo
Ian knocks on my door.
“Ate* Joy! Time to eat now!”
I walk through the empty hall,
the Filipino channel blaring on both TV’s.
The scent of garlic from Mom’s adobo fills my nose.
“Anak, mangatana!” Eat now.
All at the table, sitting quietly.
I can’t help but stare at the empty chair next to me.
Ate isn’t here, she’s in Wisconsin.
No sister, no homemade cookies after dinner,
no conversation.
So I sit, listening to:
“Bring your grades up.” and “Your ate did better.”
I slowly swallow my rice and adobo
with no replies or complaints.
I finish all the food on my plate
like a good Filipino daughter,
but I still feel empty.
Ate isn’t here. It’s not the same.
I walk down the empty hall
to my empty room.
My phone rings. It’s my sister.
”Hello?”
“I miss you! Did Mom cook adobo again?”
My loneliness washes away
and I suddenly feel full.
Joy Diwa
Grade 10, Morse High School
Poet-Teacher: Jackleen Holton
Classroom Teacher: Cynthia Larkin
*Ate: big sister
