In Verse Winners

In Verse: Citizen Writer writing challenge

Writing songs or poems is a creative, powerful way to express an opinion, convey an emotion, send a message, or tell a story. Through folk songs, raps, country music, spoken word and other genres, songwriters and poets have used their words to protest, to unite, and to inspire listeners and readers. Sometimes these works are straightforward and their meanings are clear. For example, "We Shall Overcome" is a powerful anthem that was very popular during the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and 1960s.

Other songs and poems use imagery and symbols to convey their messages, like the folk song "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie or the bilingual poem "From the Belly Button of the Moon" by Francisco Alarcon. Write a song or a poem that tells a story or expresses your opinion about something important to you. Include lots of details to convey your message. (Minimum length: three stanzas or three verses). Optional: You can include an audio file of you performing your song or reading your poem.

Winners

K-Grade 2 (Level I)

Emma G.
Poem
Brooklyn, NY

Grades 3-5 (Level II)

Erin W.
A Thought at the Sunset
Brick, NJ

Grades 6-8 (Level III)

Tanner F.
Untitled
San Tan, AZ

There are a lot of things going wrong
Today but hey, don't blame us blame the government
They are bent they want us to believe they're giving us advice
but we're still living in discontent

The doors shut no more Fountain of youth
We're all losing our wisdom tooth
There stomping out tickets to the lies in a ticket booth

There's new knowledge to be let out
There's tons to think about
The government doesn't want that seed to sprout
But there is no doubt all we're trying to do is rush out

We aren't believers in fact were teething
All in all were barely breathing
We won't listen to the teaching

We are blind we don't look back behind
It wasn't Obama or any new kind

It was the old generation that denied us ond defined us
All the people want to do lately is watch C.B.S
And believe it's all nothingness but really were wearing a full dress
Some of us are trying to express and tell us that
The government is only playing chess

There's a lot to think about in the drought
So don't sit there and pout
Let that seed sprout!

Rosalyn K.
The Challenge of Freedom
Albuquerque, NM

What is freedom? Is it a right or an excuse?
Do we still say its freedom
When we use our speech to break
The spirit of our countrymen?

Who is free? When no one is accepting
When a neighbor still judges one another
By color, or religion, or the size of a paycheck
Do we have the right to judge?

Why is there freedom? Do we deserve it?
We abuse it so readily
When our founders fought so hard
To gain the very rights we take for granted

Are we still free?
When hate and rage flow
through the very veins of this country
We pump discrimination, intolerance, and ignorance
Into the heart of our homes

Do we respect freedom?
Our men are dying to uphold the one thing
Countries around the world yearn for

Are we an example?
Or do the people
That come for a better life
No longer believe in what America promised
The candle of freedom diminishes
In the wind of rejection

Or is there still a hint of freedom?
In the boy who dies to defend his country
Or in the girl who turns a cheek to her enemy
Or to those who give a lending hand to strangers in need

I believe in freedom
I accept the challenge it presents
But I ask again, are we truly free?

Grades 9-12 (Level IV)

Guillermo R.
Writings on the Wall
Miami, FL

We are all here to witness the experimental,
fundamental, sentimental verse
that blossoms like words from my instrumental seed,
stampeding the skies like an elemental storm
from our roots that have been disconnected & torn
since the day we were born.
Unfolded & molded to reality's form.
The microphone's in hand. It's time to perform.

It's hard to retain when your thoughts are strained,
but I don't light them up & smoke them up in flames,
I dip them in paint & let them wash in the rain,
allowing them to translate the pains I sustain, but abstain to explain.
The pumping pains I squeeze from my wrist
through the ink of the pen held in my fist,
or the lead sediments that dissolve at their tips,
sprinkling color to these words which seem to not exist,
spilling the wisdom of a mad lyricist.

Now let's pause for a second so you can snap out of this hypnotism.
From my position I will project to you my vision
so you can make your decision without disposing criticism:
Everyone's a volume if you learn how to listen.

Back then, there was a parallel line between the music & the lyrics in
the rhythm,
but in the present day we lack this parallelism
since our words have been wasted in the abysm
and our music has eclipsed exceeded repetition,
because the media has managed to posses us throughout reversed exorcism,
as well as our hands & feet & how we dance, talk & write.
But beyond the neon sticks & pulsating strobe lights
that shine above silhouettes of vibrating individuals
in rituals as they self-contaminate with the drugs they justify as a
"use of recreation,"
while the speakers radiate their mesmerizing recitations
across the states & all over the nation,
we uncover insecurity & impurity
behind the curtains by which we sit in obscurity
with a conscious mind because we realize we're beginning to slip
from the lights of shame we've been clenching to with full grip,
seeking comfort from an automatic, empty glow
which hovers above us as it would for the dolls in a puppet show,
and we're progressively closer to falling into the darkness of reality,
pivoting our backs against the stage,
against the lights that burn our backs with their whips of rage,
breaking the absence of silence like the syllables of the words in this
page
which pierce gauges in the ears of the deaf
who stand like poised rats in a cage, under the breath
of the blind scientist who casts a shadow of death.

So as the days breath by
and confetti rainbows curl in the sky
like the roots of a tree that stretch into the underground,
I let the music pound over the sound
of the echo that pollutes gossip through the streets,
and creeps into your sheets,
regenerating from your head down to your feet.
So I leave these words for you in a melody at your reach.
And that terminates the last sentence in my speech,
which I hope crawls into you like a leech
and rubs off like the mute paintings tattooed in an enclosed hall,
or the outlined hieroglyphics in a bathroom stall,
because these words are more than just writings on the wall.

Gianna H.
Bearly There
Pasadena, CA

Verse I

Northrern lights, waters dark blue
Arctic sights, surrounding you
White arctic kings, paying the price
To ice floes they cling, in their ocean paradise
Crystal clear fate: they're no longer there
No time to wait: save the polar bear

Chorus

Wouldn't you care?
If your friends weren't there?
Wouldn't you care?
This is the plight of the polar bear
They're bearly there
*ECHO* bearly there

Verse II

Don't hesitate, don't wait too long
Buy a shirt, tell a friend
It's not too late to right a wrong
Save the big guys, start a bear rescue trend
Crystal clear fate: they're no longer there
No time to wait: save the polar bear