Words, Words, Words*

*In case you're wondering - Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

Now to what matters - poetry flourishes at Donvale, as Andrew Calwell reported from this year's poetry slam:

Every Year 8 student wrote and performed a poem in front of their class, then the 24 best poets were involved in the final. The standard of poetry was excellent. Our three winners shared first and second prizes, evidently much to their delight, as you can see from the picture below,  with poet and adjudicator, Joel McKerrow.

Congratulations to all.

Australian Teen Writer Award 2023

And to confirm that, indeed, poetry is alive and well at DCC, Elodie Chiha (Year 10) won Second Prize in this year’s Australian Christian Teen Writer Award for her poem The Room We Used to Sit In.

This is what the judges had to say about her work. “How do we grieve the loss of those who have hurt us? This poem exposes the raw and confusing paradox of painful presence becoming painful absence. The Room We Used to Sit In is gritty, mature and realistic about God’s healing.”

At the awards event staged by Sparklit on 31 August, there was an appropriate intake of breath as we heard Elodie read this short extract from her poem:

The room we would sit in is now repainted, reconditioned

but they kept the carpet we would sit on.

Like the room, you’ve changed.

You’re more blue and spite-ridden too

but now I will live without your taboo.

If we were in a series this would be the end

but maybe it will be renewed.

Then I could still have hope knowing

when one episode ends,

another will begin

in the room we used to sit in.

 

Now I’ll sit in it with someone else

And hold my faith in a God that heals.

But I’ll still remember the lyrics we sang with the windows open

and I’ll too remember every promise that was broken.

The alcohol soaked tears,

The feuds and your beers.

I won’t forget every insult and scream

but as I pass your controller to someone else

I’ll think of you,

and hope that one day you’ll come back

to the room we used to sit in.