Youth Anthology 2019
Grades K-4
irst Place: Cody Kleine
Jupiter
Of the planets I am number 5
The biggest of the group
You can see me in the night sky
Surrounded by my hula hoop
Sometimes I’m red or white
Or even orange, yellow or brown
My color changes with the storms
Or the winds that blow around
I have a giant red spot
And now a cold one too
I have seventy-nine moons
Galileo discovered a few
I protect the earth from danger
Blocking comets that come by
Always living up to my name
GOD OF THUNDER and THE SKY
Second Place: Selen Andi
Weather
Third Place: Kathryn King
Jupiter, Jupiter
Honorable Mentions:
Yiğit Ata (T-Rex)
Ege Burkay Uygunlar (World Peace)
Kyra Kleine (Kyra – A Biopoem)
Jupiter
Of the planets I am number 5
The biggest of the group
You can see me in the night sky
Surrounded by my hula hoop
Sometimes I’m red or white
Or even orange, yellow or brown
My color changes with the storms
Or the winds that blow around
I have a giant red spot
And now a cold one too
I have seventy-nine moons
Galileo discovered a few
I protect the earth from danger
Blocking comets that come by
Always living up to my name
GOD OF THUNDER and THE SKY
Second Place: Selen Andi
Weather
Third Place: Kathryn King
Jupiter, Jupiter
Honorable Mentions:
Yiğit Ata (T-Rex)
Ege Burkay Uygunlar (World Peace)
Kyra Kleine (Kyra – A Biopoem)
Grade 5
First Place: Yağmur Kilnamaz
Daydream
Birds fly,
I day dream.
They have wings,
My wings are my dreams.
Birds wave their wings,
I follow my dreams.
Fly birds fly,
I am racing with you all!
Second Place: Sadi Bulut
Earth Pollution
Third Place: Poyraz Ince
Space
Honorable Mentions:
Karam Sener (Music)
Ege Rizaoglu (Nature)
Efe Rizaolgu (Technology’s Danger)
Daydream
Birds fly,
I day dream.
They have wings,
My wings are my dreams.
Birds wave their wings,
I follow my dreams.
Fly birds fly,
I am racing with you all!
Second Place: Sadi Bulut
Earth Pollution
Third Place: Poyraz Ince
Space
Honorable Mentions:
Karam Sener (Music)
Ege Rizaoglu (Nature)
Efe Rizaolgu (Technology’s Danger)
Grade 6
First Place: Kayley Kleine
Chewy
The bright golden sun shines
On the soft, smooth, gray hairs of Chewy
And the wind whispers, blowing
Leaves across the street.
Tik Tok Tik Tok the time goes by
the golden sun is now a hard gray
moon. The stars shine bright and
Chewy rushes through the crunchy
Leaves ‘til he finds that he’s
Face to face with a fierce black
Cat. Chewy runs and runs but not
fast enough to outrun the fierce
Cat. The cat jumps on Chewy and
Attacks. Before Chewy could
Fight back the cat was gone.
Chewy ran through the crunchy
Leaves until at last he’s at
home., held in the cold soft hands
of his owner.
Second Place: Meliha Ayse Kamiş
Perfect
Third Place: Aylin Hasanpour
See
Honorable Mention:
Ýiğit Ergün (We Must Protect the World)
First Place: Kayley Kleine
Chewy
The bright golden sun shines
On the soft, smooth, gray hairs of Chewy
And the wind whispers, blowing
Leaves across the street.
Tik Tok Tik Tok the time goes by
the golden sun is now a hard gray
moon. The stars shine bright and
Chewy rushes through the crunchy
Leaves ‘til he finds that he’s
Face to face with a fierce black
Cat. Chewy runs and runs but not
fast enough to outrun the fierce
Cat. The cat jumps on Chewy and
Attacks. Before Chewy could
Fight back the cat was gone.
Chewy ran through the crunchy
Leaves until at last he’s at
home., held in the cold soft hands
of his owner.
Second Place: Meliha Ayse Kamiş
Perfect
Third Place: Aylin Hasanpour
See
Honorable Mention:
Ýiğit Ergün (We Must Protect the World)
Grade 7
First Place: Arjun Rajamony
US
Ripped of wings but I can fly
Ripped of eyes but I can see
Ripped of life but I can feel
The same game from their treacherous eyes
They can see past the quiet film
They know what hides underneath
And oh! Look at this life that feels like none
A small coincidence managed by them
Looking past the small square of light
And they don’t know what we feel
From the inside of this game that we
Play to look quite sane, but every
Time we cannot hear the quiet song in our ears
Ripped of wings but I can fly
Ripped of eyes but I can see
Ripped of life but I can feel
The same game from their treacherous eyes
They can feel and they can see and
They know that there is something past
The quiet film that makes me me and you you
So look out for that quiet game
That makes you feel quite sane but oh!
Look at this life that feels like none
(And yet ripped off wings, I can fly.)
Second Place: Sezin Şimșek
Best Friend
Third Place: Zeynep Vahab
Poetry
Honorable Mentions:
Mina Okur (My Darkness Is Inside Me)
Cemile Karabiçak (Friends)
Elle Papp (200 Years)
US
Ripped of wings but I can fly
Ripped of eyes but I can see
Ripped of life but I can feel
The same game from their treacherous eyes
They can see past the quiet film
They know what hides underneath
And oh! Look at this life that feels like none
A small coincidence managed by them
Looking past the small square of light
And they don’t know what we feel
From the inside of this game that we
Play to look quite sane, but every
Time we cannot hear the quiet song in our ears
Ripped of wings but I can fly
Ripped of eyes but I can see
Ripped of life but I can feel
The same game from their treacherous eyes
They can feel and they can see and
They know that there is something past
The quiet film that makes me me and you you
So look out for that quiet game
That makes you feel quite sane but oh!
Look at this life that feels like none
(And yet ripped off wings, I can fly.)
Second Place: Sezin Şimșek
Best Friend
Third Place: Zeynep Vahab
Poetry
Honorable Mentions:
Mina Okur (My Darkness Is Inside Me)
Cemile Karabiçak (Friends)
Elle Papp (200 Years)
Grade 9
First Place: Adalyn Ray
[Birds Debate the Laws of Physics]
a mailman of a hummingbird
stopped by earlier today
paid for sweetened water with a snap
twirl
does its heart ever beat as fast as
its fluttering wings? i try to listen --
-- and every time i merely hear
my own
inertia is, first and foremost,
a resistance to change
hummingbirds’ wings maintain a constant.
[the velocity of a heart just tries
before taking inertia as a suggestion]
and, before you forget
we live in a push-and-pull kind of universe
all forces between two objects
exist in equal magnitude
and opposite direction
we live in a give-and-take kind of universe
all the force between us
defies gravity and
and the laws of physics
easy math
we don’t fly like the hummingbirds
we only hover
Second Place: Tara Stankovic
Be My Sky
Third Place: Clara Small
She Dances
[Birds Debate the Laws of Physics]
a mailman of a hummingbird
stopped by earlier today
paid for sweetened water with a snap
twirl
does its heart ever beat as fast as
its fluttering wings? i try to listen --
-- and every time i merely hear
my own
inertia is, first and foremost,
a resistance to change
hummingbirds’ wings maintain a constant.
[the velocity of a heart just tries
before taking inertia as a suggestion]
and, before you forget
we live in a push-and-pull kind of universe
all forces between two objects
exist in equal magnitude
and opposite direction
we live in a give-and-take kind of universe
all the force between us
defies gravity and
and the laws of physics
easy math
we don’t fly like the hummingbirds
we only hover
Second Place: Tara Stankovic
Be My Sky
Third Place: Clara Small
She Dances
Grade 10
First Place: Jerome French
First Time
There’s a first time for everything
A first time to walk, a first time to talk
And a first time to run away with love
I remember the day we first met
I’ve talked about it so much, so instead
Here I am talking about our first chick
You brought her into my life
I remember seeing you smile when you ran up to me
and said you had a surprise
You started to laugh and let me hold her
Her feathers were so soft and she smelled like a new born
She was so scared and innocent, remember?
I took her in my arms and held her close,
you laid your head on my shoulder
There’s a first time for everything and like the first time our lips met,
I felt as if I was the happiest man alive
Remember the days we’d bring her to school? Everyone was in awe
When the saw her but I was upset when they wanted to hold her
She always seemed so scared
When they’d give her back I’d feel like an overprotective father
For her I’d do anything to protect
After playing, feeding and cleaning for hours each day
I experienced her firsts
She was my baby and she was starting to grow up
I remember the first time we had our last time together
I was so upset and so hurt I almost did the deed myself
I didn’t have the guts, she had my heart and her pain and love I felt
So I cried myself a river all morning to evening long
Holding her in my chest and kissing her before our first and final
departure
There’s a first time for everything
A first time to feel loved
A first time to feel needed
A first time for loss
Second Place: Tori-Etta Evans
Prettier in Pink
Third Place: Liv Drazen
Waiting
Honorable Mentions:
Eviyan Butler (Nowhere)
Nathan Zhang (On Opening a Cardboard Box)
Kai Jones (August)
First Time
There’s a first time for everything
A first time to walk, a first time to talk
And a first time to run away with love
I remember the day we first met
I’ve talked about it so much, so instead
Here I am talking about our first chick
You brought her into my life
I remember seeing you smile when you ran up to me
and said you had a surprise
You started to laugh and let me hold her
Her feathers were so soft and she smelled like a new born
She was so scared and innocent, remember?
I took her in my arms and held her close,
you laid your head on my shoulder
There’s a first time for everything and like the first time our lips met,
I felt as if I was the happiest man alive
Remember the days we’d bring her to school? Everyone was in awe
When the saw her but I was upset when they wanted to hold her
She always seemed so scared
When they’d give her back I’d feel like an overprotective father
For her I’d do anything to protect
After playing, feeding and cleaning for hours each day
I experienced her firsts
She was my baby and she was starting to grow up
I remember the first time we had our last time together
I was so upset and so hurt I almost did the deed myself
I didn’t have the guts, she had my heart and her pain and love I felt
So I cried myself a river all morning to evening long
Holding her in my chest and kissing her before our first and final
departure
There’s a first time for everything
A first time to feel loved
A first time to feel needed
A first time for loss
Second Place: Tori-Etta Evans
Prettier in Pink
Third Place: Liv Drazen
Waiting
Honorable Mentions:
Eviyan Butler (Nowhere)
Nathan Zhang (On Opening a Cardboard Box)
Kai Jones (August)
Grade 11
First Place: Marina Chen
Flower Drinker
I.
Purple and iridescent and brittle;
Foiled, turgid, paper wetness; soft
Out of the chrysalis,
Emerging. Many worlds
Carried on wings--
Whirling blue or green glass
With a lightning ring;
Amber melting into the
Microphones of its eyes.
II.
Drunk on fructose. Needs time alone.
III.
Like a computer leak
Next to the wall in dull glow:
Re-growth. It has
Memories and so can live happily
Forever-after; orange
Whisper flits into the sky
(a blue mason jar
For the modern epoch of butterflies.)
Second Place: Samuel Anderson
A New Bloom
Third Place: Caterina Dong
Peach Jam
Honorable Mentions:
Anishka Duggal (Father Tells Me)
Vania Zhao (Artificial Intelligentia)
Flower Drinker
I.
Purple and iridescent and brittle;
Foiled, turgid, paper wetness; soft
Out of the chrysalis,
Emerging. Many worlds
Carried on wings--
Whirling blue or green glass
With a lightning ring;
Amber melting into the
Microphones of its eyes.
II.
Drunk on fructose. Needs time alone.
III.
Like a computer leak
Next to the wall in dull glow:
Re-growth. It has
Memories and so can live happily
Forever-after; orange
Whisper flits into the sky
(a blue mason jar
For the modern epoch of butterflies.)
Second Place: Samuel Anderson
A New Bloom
Third Place: Caterina Dong
Peach Jam
Honorable Mentions:
Anishka Duggal (Father Tells Me)
Vania Zhao (Artificial Intelligentia)
Grade 12
First Place: Katherine Schwartz
The Summer’s Storm
It comes every summer,
an abrupt rage
It rustles the leaves and stirs the house
It doesn't show up on radar, no warning to prepare
There’s only the hour to brace yourself
then wait it out.
Last summer a shoe was thrown, this time it was everything on the round glass table,
one year she threatened the Bay Bridge.
But she's not abusive.
She's warm, as summer breezes are,
but sometimes, they meet a cold wind, making eruption inevitable.
The leaves have all scattered, so I sweep and sweep
She says I don't hold the broom right while she stares at her aftermath
It's fine, I say,
No yard can always be clean
Second Place: Delaney Coldren
The White Madonna Lily
Third Place: Drew Morgan
Muscle
The Summer’s Storm
It comes every summer,
an abrupt rage
It rustles the leaves and stirs the house
It doesn't show up on radar, no warning to prepare
There’s only the hour to brace yourself
then wait it out.
Last summer a shoe was thrown, this time it was everything on the round glass table,
one year she threatened the Bay Bridge.
But she's not abusive.
She's warm, as summer breezes are,
but sometimes, they meet a cold wind, making eruption inevitable.
The leaves have all scattered, so I sweep and sweep
She says I don't hold the broom right while she stares at her aftermath
It's fine, I say,
No yard can always be clean
Second Place: Delaney Coldren
The White Madonna Lily
Third Place: Drew Morgan
Muscle
Youth Director's Favorites
Flower Drinker (Marina Chen, Grade 11)
Printed Above
Mirror Poem: Still I Rise by Maya Angelou (Anika Chokhavatia, Grade 10)
You may tether me down to the chair
With your hands, ugly and warm,
You my force me down until I break
But still, like diamonds, I won’t conform.
Do my prophesies upset you?
Why avoid me like toxic fume?
‘Cause I speak like I’ve got Bibles
That guarantee your doom.
Leaving behind the laws of the land
I won’t conform
into a world that isn’t already planned
I won’t conform
Bringing the values seen in delusion,
I am the one who sees proper conclusions.
I won’t conform
I won’t conform
I won’t conform.
Daydream (Yağmur Kilnamaz, Grade 5)
Printed Above
Printed Above
Mirror Poem: Still I Rise by Maya Angelou (Anika Chokhavatia, Grade 10)
You may tether me down to the chair
With your hands, ugly and warm,
You my force me down until I break
But still, like diamonds, I won’t conform.
Do my prophesies upset you?
Why avoid me like toxic fume?
‘Cause I speak like I’ve got Bibles
That guarantee your doom.
Leaving behind the laws of the land
I won’t conform
into a world that isn’t already planned
I won’t conform
Bringing the values seen in delusion,
I am the one who sees proper conclusions.
I won’t conform
I won’t conform
I won’t conform.
Daydream (Yağmur Kilnamaz, Grade 5)
Printed Above
Adult Anthology 2019
First Place
Stephen Sanders
A Snowy Egret on Def Leppard
Through a different filter,
I would have noticed your delicate frame,
the way you glide, serenely, through the air.
I would have been drawn to the grace
in your wingtips, to the fencer’s foil of your bill.
I would have become mesmerized on elegance.
But, in this instant, through the ebony spandex
and ragged, red nylons of pounding drums,
pulsing bass, and solid body ecstasy,
I feel the might in your shoulders
lifting us both higher and higher through the humid air.
Banking with far more agility than any jet fighter,
you return-to-target with a skillful flick
of your wingtips; a reversal of speed and direction
that a human ace can only dream of enduring.
Intoxicated by the power of your flight, I drive on,
into the next eight bars of a guitar solo,
trying to control my speed
and my own beating heart urging me on
to follow your free flight.
A Snowy Egret on Def Leppard
Through a different filter,
I would have noticed your delicate frame,
the way you glide, serenely, through the air.
I would have been drawn to the grace
in your wingtips, to the fencer’s foil of your bill.
I would have become mesmerized on elegance.
But, in this instant, through the ebony spandex
and ragged, red nylons of pounding drums,
pulsing bass, and solid body ecstasy,
I feel the might in your shoulders
lifting us both higher and higher through the humid air.
Banking with far more agility than any jet fighter,
you return-to-target with a skillful flick
of your wingtips; a reversal of speed and direction
that a human ace can only dream of enduring.
Intoxicated by the power of your flight, I drive on,
into the next eight bars of a guitar solo,
trying to control my speed
and my own beating heart urging me on
to follow your free flight.
Second Place
Terry Dawson
cold steel
coke fumes enter the ubiquitous red brick of each
home hunkering down with others on the hillsides
the wide Ohio swallows hard beneath
gray sheets of ice under dozens of bridges,
pale blue & canary but in such weather mostly
gray as well below a low slate sky: it is the
way of this burg(h), choking for decades
blast furnaces gorging on mounds of soft
bituminous coal ignite nights’ shadowy banks
on the merging Monongahela & Allegheny
the lingering snow hardens to spikes growing longer &
blacker by the day the chill reducing pollution to fog, the city
rounds its shoulders into a grip along with everyone else
making a beeline for a place -- any place -- inside
our few words to each other as we pass
rise to steam — after all
what is there to say that hasn’t been said the men
crowding round downtown bars in the early morning
darkness downing amber boilermakers utter
next to nothing before heading across
rivers to forge pig iron into ingots of steel
the dead of winter itself has yet to speak
as towering flues raise fists of industry
above castles of metal cloaked in soot
defiance has its own silence;
resignation its own mischief
& the cold always
its riveted self-assurance
cold steel
coke fumes enter the ubiquitous red brick of each
home hunkering down with others on the hillsides
the wide Ohio swallows hard beneath
gray sheets of ice under dozens of bridges,
pale blue & canary but in such weather mostly
gray as well below a low slate sky: it is the
way of this burg(h), choking for decades
blast furnaces gorging on mounds of soft
bituminous coal ignite nights’ shadowy banks
on the merging Monongahela & Allegheny
the lingering snow hardens to spikes growing longer &
blacker by the day the chill reducing pollution to fog, the city
rounds its shoulders into a grip along with everyone else
making a beeline for a place -- any place -- inside
our few words to each other as we pass
rise to steam — after all
what is there to say that hasn’t been said the men
crowding round downtown bars in the early morning
darkness downing amber boilermakers utter
next to nothing before heading across
rivers to forge pig iron into ingots of steel
the dead of winter itself has yet to speak
as towering flues raise fists of industry
above castles of metal cloaked in soot
defiance has its own silence;
resignation its own mischief
& the cold always
its riveted self-assurance
Third Place
Steve Vogel
Of Age
There is an end to winter,
an end to the lone sparrow
remembering his mate
among the forest violets.
Lives, lives everywhere--
invisible lives
below the bracken,
beneath the ceramic snow,
creatures hosted by springs
and supplied by the fumes
of summer—the earth grows
full on their partings.
The rains have long since
settled under vines,
and the river has moved on.
Water must go down,
always down to the center,
though it is destined to rise
again as a breathing vapor,
the steam of vigor,
its whiteness the beginning
of color in the rhododendron,
in the flushing cheeks
of a neophyte.
I fold my heart in its place,
in the readiness of a sparrow,
for I have known the ends,
and life is hidden within me.
Of Age
There is an end to winter,
an end to the lone sparrow
remembering his mate
among the forest violets.
Lives, lives everywhere--
invisible lives
below the bracken,
beneath the ceramic snow,
creatures hosted by springs
and supplied by the fumes
of summer—the earth grows
full on their partings.
The rains have long since
settled under vines,
and the river has moved on.
Water must go down,
always down to the center,
though it is destined to rise
again as a breathing vapor,
the steam of vigor,
its whiteness the beginning
of color in the rhododendron,
in the flushing cheeks
of a neophyte.
I fold my heart in its place,
in the readiness of a sparrow,
for I have known the ends,
and life is hidden within me.
Navigating the AIPF Website
Navigating our website is not really complicated, but does require a few steps since we are linking different events and dealing with different credit card processers. The important thing to remember is that you must register to move forward with Membership, Festival Attendance and/or Submitting to the Anthology.
If you’re an ‘old hand’ you might be able to stumble through the process on your own.
If you’re having problems navigating the revised website, click on the "Navigating the Website" tab as a guide which is located under the "Start Here" tab.
If you’re an ‘old hand’ you might be able to stumble through the process on your own.
If you’re having problems navigating the revised website, click on the "Navigating the Website" tab as a guide which is located under the "Start Here" tab.