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A sampling of winning poems by Sebastian Gyovai, Liz Maceda,
Sasha Smith, Akshita Gupta, Sophie Lankarani
May 16, 2026 at Weymouth Center
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An Immigrant’s View
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America, can I ring the Taco Bell?
America, my boots are giving me blisters.
America, do buffalos really have wings?
America, I need water, my throat is dry.
America, my phone says it’s an Apple, but it tastes like metal.
America, why are there witches and zombies at my door?
America, can Red Bull give me wings so I can fly back to my country?
America, who is All State and why are their hands so big?
America, can you dry the tears in my eyes?
America, the Capital One wants to see my wallet,
but America, there’s not much to see.
America, give me a home.
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Sebastian Gyovai
First Place, Travis Tuck Jordan Award. Sebastian is a 5th grader at The Raleigh School, Raleigh, NC.
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Becoming
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I am learning the language of mirrors,
How to look at myself without asking permission to exist,
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The hallway light flickers, and for a second
I am made of seconds, I am everything people say I am.
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But shadows move when the light changes.
So do I.
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I carry questions in my pockets, folded like notes I never pass.
Who am I when no one is watching?
Who will I be when I stop pretending?
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Some days, I speak in whispers.
Other days, my silence is louder
than the room I walk into.
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I am becoming
Someone who takes up space.
Someone who doesn’t apologize for the shape of their voice.
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One day,
I will step out of the echo of others’ words
and answer with my own.
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Liz Maceda
Second Place, Mary Chilton Award. Liz is a 9th grader at Carrboro High School, Carrboro, NC.
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Math
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I tire of this boring math
Of which to me seems really hath
No purpose nor beauty in my life
Yet fills long hours with strife
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But when I try to advocate
They say “you’ll need this to create
The future of which you dream”
It only makes me want to scream
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I dream not of complex equations
Nor of mathematical vocations
Though you may call it frivolity
I prefer an essay to an inequality
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Long have I done well in school
It seems to me it should be cool
If I don’t take a little break
I’ll throw this laptop in a lake
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A grade is just a useless number
Worry about trees being cut for lumber
I should think it’s more relevant
To learn how to save the elephant
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Sasha Smith
Honorable Mention, Mary Chilton Award. Sasha is an 8th graders at R.D. and Euzelle Smith Middle School, Chapel Hill, NC.
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Blue Mother
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She glows in the rising sun
Her waves crashing down
Cradling her children
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No matter how big or small
She holds them all
Close to her heart
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But when the blue is hidden
Behind all the trash
It gives me pause
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Seeing the life
The beauty
Slowly drain from her
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All the death and blackness
Surrounding her
Breaks something in my heart
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But we can change
We can be good
We can show her the beauty of us
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We can save the life
Save us
Save our mother
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And I know
When we choose this
The Blue Mother will forgive us all
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Akshita Gupta
Third Place, Joan Scott Memorial Environment Award. Kash is an 8th grader at Young Writers’ Institute, Cary, NC.
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Dear Iran After Wolpe
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Even though I only once traced your streets with my own feet,
you wandered into my dreams anyway,
sliding in through my grandmother’s stories,
drifting out of the steam of her afternoon tea, searching for a place to land.
You slipped in from the clatter of spoons
against crystal tea glasses,
from the rustle of pistachios in a bowl,
from the smell of warm barbari bread.
You crawled across the living room rug
with its deep red blossoms, and settled in the hollow of my throat
like an unfinished sentence.
I thought you were gold, Tehran,
and pomegranate-red, bursting with juice,
spice merchants crushing saffron threads between their fingertips,
the air thick with sumac and smoke
and the hum of bargaining voices.
I dream of you, Tehran, I dream
every night with the ache of someone trying to read
a language she was never taught.
I search for you in the slope of my nose, the olive of my skin.
But I cannot come to you.
You stay sealed behind headlines and rumors,
across news screens and phone calls,
behind the constant warning, “Not now. It’s not safe.”
And so you live inside me instead
a place I carry like a hidden heirloom
glimmering in the dark.
A city I cannot visit but that pulls at me anyway, calling my name
like a prayer in a language I don’t understand
but somehow already know.
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Sophie Lankarani
First Place, The Sherry Pruitt Award. Sophie is a Senior at The Asheville School, Asheville, NC
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After the NC Poetry Society contestants read their winning poems, members of The Poetic Justice League shared readings by special request. These student poets from Carrboro High School are led by their creative writing instructor Raquel Harris. The flow of inspiration they bring is electric!
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Gemella Marey
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Dil Singh
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Ever Harris
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Naomi Hirsch
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Isabel “Liz” Carty
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The North Carolina Poetry Society conducts five contest for students each year. The submission period opens on November 1, with a deadline of January 31. Winners are invited to attend and read their poem at Sam Ragan Awards Day at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities (Southern Pines) in May. Check
HERE for guidelines and details.
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Winning poems are published in the anthology Pinesong. If you would like to purchase a copy ($10), or if you are a NCPS member and would like to request your complimentary copy, please contact Membership Vice President Joan Barasovska: msjoan9@gmail.com.
The NCPS Student Contests are:
The Travis Tuck Jordan Award for students in Grades 3 – 5.
Endowed by Dorothy and Oscar Pederson
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The Joan Scott Memorial Award for poems about the environment, students in Grades 5 – 9.
Endowed by contributions in memory of Joan Scott and by the Board of the NC Poetry Society.
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The Mary Chilton Award for students in Grades 6 – 9.
Sponsored by Tori Reynolds
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The Sherry Pruitt Award for students in Grades 10 – 12
Endowed by Gail Peck
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The Undergraduate Award for students attending a North Carolina college or university or whose parents or guardians live in the state of North Carolina .
Endowed by the Judith C. Beale Bequest.
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And THANK YOU especially to all the teachers and parents who encourage these young poets to continue to contemplate and create!
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
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– Bill
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
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