Each year, the Ivy Tech Central Indiana Libraries hold a student poetry contest.
The 2020 winners are:
1st place--Haley Smith "Rehab Rebuilt"
2nd place--Vanessa Johnson "The Glass Case"
3rd place--Chloe Baughman "Dress Code"
Congratulations to the 2020 winners!
Winning entries receive prizes and publication in New Voices.
For more information on the poetry contest, or information on how to submit your poetry:
His innocent eyes flutter open
Soon wide scanning the room
Washed wool spinning
I catch a glimpse
Of something inside
A familiar feeling
My sanguine eyes taking in
The rubble and destruction
Blood stained bricks of Canaan
Cleansed by fire
I read a promise painted
By the ashes left behind a city rebuilt
Never able to sleep
Restless to my core
Waiting for night
To go out
Wanton eyes
Scan for provision
Pulling him in
As I’m pulled under
The clashing
Of two opposing currents
Looping vortex of insanity
Suffocation
Never able to sleep
Stock-still unstirred
This night
I won’t go out
I hear the walls
Crumble
Dredged out from the pit
My heart turning within
A stirring
In my stomach
With stammering lips
Quickened
Jericho is fallen
Seas parted
Land possessed
Divine purpose
I glance up to my window
Scarlet
Jehovah is risen
Seas parted
Land possessed again
Suffering mollified
I glance up to my window
Scarlet
You locked me in a glass case and threw away the key.
You told me the shards would kill me if I tried to break free.
I thought my fragile box offered protection from a world you said was vile,
but glass now surrounds my feet on the tile.
It turns out that you were the villain all the while,
stabbing me with words that glistened in the night.
You made sorely sure I couldn’t take flight.
A razor sharp tongue that jabbed with intent,
hidden by your blindness to what you thought you really meant.
You mastered your skill, held me in strife with your knife.
The gaslighting enlightened the way I looked at life.
Is freedom really free? Is my voice a silent plea?
Uncertainty is my shadow, the puppeteer over me.
Anger shows on the face of the girl at school
When her off-the-shoulders blouse is deemed “inappropriate”
And she must change or leave the campus.
Disappointment is evident in the teachers’ lounge the next day
When she returns to school wearing the same shirt, and again
She must change or leave the campus.
They say lust is in the hearts of the boys at school
When they see her shirt that covers everything but her shoulders,
So she must change or leave the campus.
Understanding evades her as she sits in the office,
Because why is her shirt a problem for the boys?
Why must she change or leave the campus?
The office worker feels pity as she looks at the girl
Because the shirt is so pretty, and it only shows her shoulders!
But she knows the girl must change or leave the campus.
The girl is calm as she sits across from the principal.
She knows the problem is the boys and not her shirt
But still she must change or leave the campus.
The principal is frustrated as she looks at the girl,
But she knows the rules. She looks sadly at the shirt and says,
“You must change or leave the campus.”
The girl is sad as she walks back to her locker.
She wishes she could wear her beautiful shirt, but she can’t.
She won’t change, so she leaves the campus