Elementary School
FIRST PLACE
The Elements of Freedom
5th Grade Bruce Drysdale ES, Hendersonville, NC.
The Elements of Freedom
People want control
They want others to think their way
Because they fear freedom
If they looked beyond their fear though
They would see a beautiful thing
Like fire, look past the flames and danger
And it is magnificent
But it can also tear people apart
Freedom is water too,
It flows through all things
Humans can’t survive without it,
However when it washes things away
It leaves no survivors
Freedom can be like earth
Many things are made of earth
Earth feeds life
But on its own, it can easily be torn apart
Air too, can be like freedom
Lifting birds into the sky, carried by their wings and great bursts of wind
It swirls and sounds like music
It screams and whistles
It destroys things with great gusts
Freedom is like each of these elements,
Beautiful, yet dangerous
Peaceful, yet furious
Too much freedom creates turmoil
Too much fire creates destruction
Too much water washes everything away
Too much earth buries everything Too much air creates a hurricane But each of these things in just the right amount
Can do wonders
SECOND PLACE
My Feet Are Grounded
5th Grade, Sterling School, Greenville, SC.
My Feet Are Grounded
I look up and down
I’m never stable
I’m just too, too slow
I look left and right
I am buried in fright
And I don’t know
That I’m alone
I’m lost in a world full of thoughts
I’m confused, it’s a storm
I’m nervous too, I don’t know what to do
Then why do I keep going on?
I’m trapped in one place or another
Always moving but I’m never free
Why can’t I just be me?
But I keep going on
Never stopping
Pushing forward
Never popping
With all the thoughts stuck in my mind
Reflecting upon the past and looking forward to the future
Just can’t wait, just can’t wait
To be free
To fly above the clouds
To soar above the grounds
To fly around the whole world
To be free
To be free
I’m a bird
Lost in this world
Waiting to be free
To break away from this cage
To be free
Waiting to be free
THIRD PLACE
One Word
5th Grade, Palasiades Episcopal, Charlotte, NC.
One Word
As I look to the vast heavens
The wind brushes my fingertips
I feel as though I can fly
From my lips not a sound comes forth
I gaze at the path ahead
And I can almost make out a word
One singular word
That captures all of the worlds essence
Freedom
Honorable Mention
Freedom
4th Grade, Donegal Intermediate School, Marietta, PA.
Freedom
Some work to get it
Some wait to get it
Some face pain to get it
They all face hard times
And when they get it
They don’t take it for granted
They keep pushing past the expectations
But there are some who never get it
Never get what there dream was
They work and work to try to get it
They work for the slim chance of it
Only hope driving them forward
Only for the tiniest bit of it
They work their whole life
To climb higher
But when they reach the top they get pushed down
Freedom isn’t free
It comes at high cost
Even death in the shape of war
Washington's blood stains
Scars of the redcoats
The Declaration of Independence
Freedom is the sun after a storm
Freedom is good
There is nothing better
Than the rising sun
There is nothing better than freedom
Its warmth its hope
Darkness can’t overpower
We rise up over darkness
The war for freedom
The birth of a new country
The end of the war for freedom
The end of the war, peace
Freedom, what everyone deserves
Peace is what we need
A break from war and fighting
Freedom, the sun, sweet freedom
Honorable Mention
Freedom
5th Grade, Wiley International Magnet Elementary School, Raleigh, NC.
freedom
freedome is a dove
flying over thhe cage
that once trappeD it
gOing whereVer its wings can takE it
holding our country's flag
freedom is a flag
striped with the blood once shed
dotted with the stars now looked up to
Flying over the Land
thAt onnce had slaves
finally let go
freedom is letting go
bReaking thE chains
the ones who were forced to work
the ones who we've Lost
thE pAinful momentS
the dovEs
who were once chicks in our nest
freedom is a chick
stubborn and Curious
amazed by the ligHt
after being stuCk in the darK for so long
freedom is the light
amazing afte a Long time without it
Giving you joy and peace
Helping Through the darkness
giving you the energy and ability to fullfill your dreams
Freedom is ability
being Allowed to do whatever you want
Being allowed to comply with your heart
being allowed to Live equally witthout being forced To do anYthing
frEedom is eQuality
the right to be treated the same way as others
no matter what yoU look like
how you think or Act or feel.
Middle School
First Place
Infinity
8th Grade, Homeschool, Brooklyn, NY
Infinity
Sometimes I want to find a field
Adorned with moonlight flowers,
So I may lay amongst them
in the starflower night,
When it’s bright from miniature suns
That I can almost reach out and grab,
To put in my pocket and carry home
So I may keep a bit of peace with me
When all I see is war.
I want to lay among the star-shard petals
And pretend it’s the sky I rest in,
Imagine that the flowers under me are
The same little lamps as the ones that
Dance in the heavens every night.
I want to feel the universe thrumming
Both inside and out, to see that
Every day stars die, but the sky
Still looks the same.
In the coming of winter, the flowers I lay on will die
But their children will come back next season.
Everything changes, but their essence stays the same.
So although I may die and be reborn
A thousand times,
As long as I do not forget who I am
My soul will never cease to burn so bright,
As bright as the stars in the night sky
And the flora that mirrors them,
A vast expanse of flowers upon flowers
That blur together with the sky and the stars
Until I no longer am bound to life
Second Place
Flash of Freedom
7th Grade, Palasaides Episcopal School, Charlotte, NC.
Flash of Freedom
It was a glistening day in September.
The breeze of Nebraskan air tickled the needles of the red cedars.
Birds of diverse types waved hello to strangers below.
But one bird, flashed in the corner of my eye.
It was different.
It flew alone.
Even higher that the hawk,
Angeled almost vertically,
Going faster than any raptor could go,
Leaving a stripe of paint in its path.
Eventually the earth rumbled.
I covered my ears, buffering them from the
Eagle’s screech.
Just before the bird soared out of sight,
A new bird broke from formation and disappeared
Third Place
It's Killing Me, Literally
8th Grade, Keystone School, San Antonio, TX.
It’s Killing Me, Literally
After “Allowables” by Nikki Giovanni
I was killed
I am not a dangerous animal
like a grizzly bear
or a poisonous spider
I wouldn’t hurt a fly, or anything of the sort
I don’t attack passing campers
I don't prey on others using a deadly poison
I just want to breathe,
to live, to sit, to be
I never threatened,
never raised a hand
never asked for more than what you have
to exist without fear
I am not wild
nor threatening
Ne’er menacing
I was killed
The sad inevitable.
It’s allowed
A law, a reason,
a badge…
Some worn by those who hold themselves above legislation
A statement of who gets to be there
And who doesn’t
I wasn't dangerous—I was innocent
My freedom was a fragile bird, wings clipped by unloving hands
I sought the open sky
The simple right to be
Something other than a threat
Freedom was never mine to hold
Promise made,
but never kept
They wrote it in laws,
in speeches,
in stone
But not in the place where I stood
My existence questioned before it was taken
What is freedom if it can be stripped away?
What if it belongs to some, but not to me?
I was not a threat
Nor a danger
Just a person
Just one life
Honorable Mention
Dreamers
8th Grade, Homeschool, Monaca, PA.
Dreamers
Inspired by the stories of many who passed through Ellis Island
Dreamers, living in a dreamless world of
War, despair, hunger, hate,
Death, terror.
Secrets whispered at night.
Worried mothers hold babies
To their hearts.
Hiding, running, until…
a door opens,
a way out.
A long voyage by boat,
storms arrest the calm.
Screams and shouts echo,
waves pounding
harder and harder,
‘til it seems like it is
the end.
Suddenly,
peace, quiet.
The swaying slows,
heads raise,
faces brighten,
hope returns.
Soon,
a glimpse of a tall,
copper woman.
Land!
Laughter, hugging,
tears of pure joy spill over thin cheeks.
“The journey is over. We are here!”
The passengers cry.
Off the rocking cage,
into a grand building.
Long lines,
Overpowering heat,
Sweat, anger,
Fear.
Scorn, shame.
Then,
Out.
Into the air.
Into the light.
Into that land ached for by many nations,
risen from the ashes of
a freeing revolution,
a green sprout,
a land that welcomed all.
The yearners, the hopers, the determined longers
stretch and drink in the freedom,
a new dream,
a better life,
a wish granted.
Their arms wide open,
America.
High School Poems
First Place
Equal Justice Rights - Citizen
10th Grade, Mark Keppel High School, Monteray Park , CA.
Equal Justice Rights - Citzen
Justice stands, firm and unshaken,
Born in struggle, yet never forsaken.
It marched through time, a ceaseless tide,
Like March’s winds, strong and wide.
The stars once scattered, dim and torn,
Now blaze like fire where hope is born.
Silver coins one weighs us down,
Now roots of change break through the ground.
A tree of freedom, tall and grand,
Its branches stretch across the land.
Fraternity blooms where justice grows,
And in its shade, true freedom flows
Second Place
Something Like Freedom
9th Grade, Livingstone High School, Livingston, NJ.
Something like Freedom
Something like freedom,
Doesn’t care what you think.
It takes what it wants
Without asking.
Leaves when it wants
Without telling.
You think you know what it is,
But you don’t,
And maybe you never will.
Something like freedom,
Changes people.
For better,
Or for worse.
Something like freedom,
Requires sacrifice.
People, things, wants and needs
All lost to the flames of greed and
Inequality.
Something like freedom,
Is the most beautiful view,
Person,
Artwork,
That you’ve ever seen.
It is the most beautiful song,
Poem,
Voice,
That you’ve ever heard.
Something like freedom,
Is the most beautiful feeling,
You can dare to feel
Third Place
The Statue of Liberty
11th Grade, Sage Hill School, Newport, CA.
The Statue of Liberty
What is a monument,
but the dream of immigrants—
A beacon carved of stone that lies in one’s hands?
I stand strong upon the shoulders of those who came before,
but a blank space still to be carved
leaves an opportunity for my name
to shine above the trees,
through the shadows of our past.
I write it in the way I speak,
in the struggles I overcome,
in the dreams I carry from the past
into the future,
each breath like a marathon.
This monument is built
not of granite or bronze—
it is of sweat and tears
bleeding through each page of a storybook
told beneath the moon’s watchful eye. I
ts history stands strong
long after the crashing waves
erase footprints,
long after the jagged stone is smoothed
by history’s tides.
I, the monument, am the dream, the pain…
and the living memory of those
who built a legacy,
a torch lit for those who dream
a dream forever
rooted in the American spirit
Honorable Mention
Bounce Back
10th Grade, Livingston High School, Livingston, NJ.
Bounce Back
I feel free.
But when I step on the court,
the nerves flow.
Studying for a test,
in a time crunch,
feels easy, relaxing.
But making that jumpshot,
almost impossible to perfect.
Writing an essay,
is what brings me joy.
Playing on the court alone,
brings the constant stress of pressure.
Getting that last word on the page;
now that Is as easy as pie,
not like Shooting a ball
When I think about it
What actually causes me anxiety?
(Now read it backwards)
Honorable Mention
to be twelve years old running free
11th Grade, Basis Independent McClean, McLean, VA.
to be twelve years old running free
When we were twelve we used to sit, like all twelve-year-olds do, and talk to the dead on an old nineteen-fifties phone your mother strung up and pljugged into the tangled power strip jammed into the one outlet in your dirty old baseement.
It was with that dingy, baby-pink phone, on summer-chharred afternoons, lthat we learned the freedom and rage of our colliding, shifting youth,
We talked first to our grandmothers, not because we ever really liked them while they were alive, but because that is what you do when your grandmother's dead, you pretend to forget all the slurs and pinches and you call them up to listen to them tallk about all the neighbors and brothers they always loathed.
Once we tired of seething old ladies in graves that smell like cloying petunia perfume, we'd walk through the graveyard and pick names off the ugliest tombstones to call, and we'd talk for hours iwth each one about their chain smoking, swearing, vile old days, and so we know all the disgusting parts of angels. We talked to your mother, we talked to mine, we talked to everyone who died too young to ever show their true colors to a soul, and so with every twisted secret and nasty, final hiss through that dingy plastic receiver, the dead ground their irreverence into our bones.
And so we'd spit on graves, and on American flags, because we were just old enought to know that everything we knew about the world was a lie, but juste young enough not to understand the heaping, heaving, multitude of reasons why. and thus our confusions turned into rage, into quiet, samll rebellions, into acts of knowing that spread a freedome like numbness thhrough our limbs.
So we'd fill our days sitting on scratchy basement carpeting and listen ot the dead sing songs and stories, drinking their venomous tales like lemon-water, our summers owned, like they always had been, but the beautiful and the vile, who took our hands, and showed us the world stipped of false smiles, laid cold and bare at our innocent feet.
Every now and then, they'd scream, and reach their jagged fists through the phone, and try to crawl their way out. It was always the young ones, the five and six year olds who felt cheated, who wanted to live again as they werre, or else drag another out with them.
They used to latch onto our ears - remember? - and try to pull us in, and not once did they try it that we didn't want them to succeed, that we didn't want to go taste the sickly sweet bile of the dead, cold world of cadavers, for death when you're twelve is nothing but an old friend, whose fingers are still tangeled up in your hair and your veins, cold and blue and howling like ghosts.
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