Students-Poetry

10th grade student, Zachariah Claypole White, won a National Silver Medal from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the nation’s largest and longest running (begun in 1923) scholarship and recognition program for teenage artists and writers. After winning two gold awards at the regional level, Zachariah received one of 1,500 national awards in a competition with more than 185,000 entries. Past high school age honorees include: Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Robert Redford and Joyce Carol Oates. 

Zachariah will be recognized at an awards ceremony at New York’s Carnegie Hall later this spring. Here’s one of the poems from his winning portfolio, Japanese Landscape.

Japanese Landscape

I think it is raining
the cliffs of grass
rise and fall
like towers

I think it is raining

the river
that is probably not
a river

but the chord of a refrain
or a lover’s low voice

writes its path through
the weeping snow

but it is probably not snow
but a fish leaping from
the waves

or the verse of
a long forgotten
song
and the cascade of the white
and the blood of the green

remind me of you
but it is probably not you