Gold and Silver Keys

Two weeks ago, the Regional awards for Scholastics, a nationally recognized art competition, were announced. Surprisingly, I found out that I had won a Gold key for my poetry entry "But Not Really, Clair de Lune" had won gold key, the highest award. SImilarly, my other poetry entry "Dear Jack, Half-Truths, Chalk Dust, Railroads, Phosphorylation" won Silver key. Also, another bit of exciting news is that my poetry entry "But Not Really, Clair de Lune" is going to New York to be judged at the national competition.

I had entered Scholastics last year on a whim, but hadn't won anything. To have my poetry recognized regionally (the region that I had entered consisted of 16 states) made me realize my own strength in poetry. Before, I must admit, I lacked confidence in my poetry. But having received regional (and perhaps national?) recognition has increased my own awareness about my growth as a amateur poet and artist. I am a bit more confident with my poetry, and I'm glad that I committed to my club Spectrum, which really helped hone my poetry skills. With Spectrum, I can experiment with various techniques in my poetry (for instance, right now, I'm going through a phase where I only capitalize important words in my poems).

In case you're curious, here are the poems that I entered in Scholastics.

Clair de Lune

I'll tell you of the Debussy

Moon, reified in the soft specter
of light falling from stars.

But not Really

My first friend (but not really)

in kindergarten
had blonde hair and a bright smile,
and our world was made up of
glitter crayons and colored paper.
But,
Because I had dark hair, almond eyes,
and broken English learned from watching TV,
I never was invited… never invited.
I told my mother, sobbing,
“I wish I was blonde, why am I not blonde?”

My first slow dance (but not really)
was with a boy with a charming smile,
And short brown hair.
I had known him for a week and five days,
And we danced on the stage
With a sluggish heart-beat of music.
And when I laid my head on his chest,
His arms around my waist,
I thought,
“This isn’t right…
This isn’t love at all”
And I ran.

My first crush (but not really),
Who had dark hair and a shy smile,
Told me, pencil whispering on paper,
That I was pretty,
and I smiled,
because being blonde didn’t matter anymore,
and life was more than colored paper and crayons,
and I was happy.