Congratulations, Spring Into Poetry Winners 2021!

At the library, tensions were high,
As April days were passing by.
We all waited anxiously,
For patrons to write their poetry.
Whether sonnet, haiku, limerick,
Or flowing free verse as your pick,
We read them all, and were delighted
By the myriad themes you all highlighted.
The judges have had time to simmer,
and found the poems to be named winner!

Congratulations to our first inaugural Spring into Poetry contest winners. This year, we challenged all aspiring poets to pen verses read in 3 minutes or less (4500 characters max), and our community certainly delivered. Poems of all kinds were submitted and will be added to our growing local collection of short form literature published online through the Short Edition portal. For contest winners and submissions, you can search a specific poem title or author or click on one of the 1-3-5-minute buttons for a random selection of poem. Currently, the buttons on the portal have special assignments to showcase the Spring into Poetry contest submissions:

• '1’ will provide winning submissions from the Age 0-12 categories
• '3' will provide winning submissions from teen, adult, or library staff categories
• '5’ will showcase all the wonderful submissions

Winning Poets

Age 0-7 Category Winners

• First Place: Vedant Basu Acharya, "Spring"
• Second Place: Zain Shaikh, "My School"
• Third Place: Aaron Wang, "Slug"

Age 8-9 Winners Category Winners

• First Place: Vincent Chai, "A Summer Day"
• Second Place: Sonia Wang, "I Am Not Bad"
• Third Place: Alexa Saji, "The Lovely Season Spring"

Pre-teen Age 10-12 Category Winners 

• First Place: Maggie Liu, "Élégie for My Past"
• Second Place: Yoon Koo, "Ode to My Mug"
• Third Place: Julie Le, "Haikus: the Beauty of Flowers"

Teen Age 13-17 Category Winners

• First Place: Muskaan Grewal, "addiction safe drug"
• Second Place: Natalie Shin, "Who?"
• Third Place: Minjee Kim, "Wishing Well"

Adult 18+ Category Winners

• First Place: Sampoorna, "Things I Miss The Most"
• Second Place: Cathy Shin, "September"
• Third Place: Christine Silva, "My Garden"*

Library Staff Winners

• First Place: Thomas Hewitt, "Sisyphus Hears the Lyre"
• Second Place: Laura Nacorda, "Seek & Find"
• Third Place: Raheleh Seifoddini, "The Unwanted"

Each winner will receive a gift certificate to local bookseller Hicklebee's, as well as an assortment of goodies to help keep the words and creativity flowing. Congratulations again winners, and indeed to all who participated! We look forward to seeing more submissions for our next creative writing contest this fall.

Update: Contest Guidelines

We've received comments about submissions that have been previously published and thank anyone who raised these concerns. Due to the large number of submissions received, we relied heavily on patron forthrightness in ensuring their submissions adhered to our guidelines. Upon investigating, we found some poems had won and been published in previous contests. We made the decision to disqualify the submissions due to not adhering to our guidelines. We thank everyone for their feedback and diligence. We hope you will submit to one of our future creative writing contests.

*Updated winner, previous selection did not adhere to competition guidelines.