For the second time in as many years, Mount Madonna School (MMS) student’ junior Julia Gratton has wowed the judges and received first prize in the 22nd annual Santa Cruz County High School Poetry Competition. Gratton’s poem To the Janitor took top honors, while another of her works, 793 Cranes , received an Honorable Mention.
Congratulation to Julia and the seven other MMS students whose poetry will be included in the anthology:
Lucas Caudill, 9th, Writing a Sestina
Caroline Smith, 10th, Her Happy Aura
Cat Ching, 10th, Blank Page
Cameron Bess 11th, Spaghetti-A Sestina
Holden Smith, 11th, The Perilous Horizon
Sophia Saavedra, 11th, Ever-So-Hopeful and Tangles and Plaques
Lexi Julien, 12th, Whisper
MMS students study several kinds of poetry in high school: sestinas, sonnets, villanelles, free verse, blank verse, odes, ballads, lyrics, prose-poems and haiku, and are well educated in poetic forms and possibilities.
‘I am so proud of the creativity and courage in our students—in the classroom, onstage, and as it pertains to my subject, in their journals,]’ shared Haley Campbell, MMS high school English and creative writing teacher. ‘Their creative writing is raw and beautiful and vulnerable. ‘A good poem’, according to Dylan Thomas, ‘helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.’ This year the majority of our high school students contributed their work to our community in class and at the Creative Writing Reading, and they also submitted their poems to the Santa Cruz County High School Poetry Competition. In all 235 students from thirteen Santa Cruz County high schools entered a total of 371 poems in the competition. From those entries, eight MMS students had a total of ten works selected for the final anthology of 51 poems.’
The annual competition is sponsored by Poetry Santa Cruz; a public reading and awards ceremony was held on May 21.
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To the Janitor
By Julia Gratton
You come when the day slips off and the first pinpricks of silvery light puncture lavender wisps of air.
When the taillights of Priuses and Teslas and rattling old sedans are just glowing red streaks on the pavement.
You come when the hurried, jostling numbers have left those halls. Though the regiment of gray lockers cannot remember a single face, they still echo with receding footsteps.
The basketball players and the teachers grading papers the couples making out under the bleachers and the kids hiding in bathroom stalls All have left.
Curling tendrils of the plant you bought at the dime store wrap around bottles of bleach, mops propped against the walls The Virgin of Guadelupe, held behind glass and old wood, shines her love
on the cardboard boxes of extra-large trash bags their only purpose to hold the unwanted debris of lives, the scraps thrown off the back of the train
Do you dance down the long corridors mop in hand? Do you read the notes you find on the floor imagining who wrote them, who read them?
Do you toss forgotten paper planes with practiced accuracy into the trash? Do you turn on all the lights so you don’t feel so alone.
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The Perilous Horizon
by Holden Smith
walking alone through great expanses i look to the endless horizon which bears the perilous night sky tales of old woven with the stars run through my mind are there any left to be told? ageless winds lift the world from my shoulders all is forgotten as i look into the great beyond our faces cast across the sky lives entangled with the stars this story is yet to be told i sit back and watch it unfold
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Whisper
By Lexi Julien
She’s a whisper, that one Floating in and out of ears like a rolling tide She’s but a flutter, so teasing in her grace A secret begging to be known She hides in plain sight, behind those sea green eyes As haunting as any stolen dream Leaving a want for more, to hear What that closed heart wishes to sing I watch her now and feel a pain But do not know if it is mine, in My want for what’s hidden beyond those locked doors Or if this pang in my chest is for The one in her own In her silent sorrows no one sees In those whispers she seems to be.
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Nestled among the redwoods on 355 mountaintop acres, Mount Madonna is a safe and nurturing college-preparatory school that supports students in becoming caring, self-aware and articulate critical thinkers, who are prepared to meet challenges with perseverance, creativity and integrity. The CAIS and WASC accredited program emphasizes academic excellence, creative self-expression and positive character development. Located on Summit Road between Gilroy and Watsonville.
Contact: Leigh Ann Clifton, Marketing & Communications,
Contact: Leigh Ann Clifton, director of marketing & communications,
Nestled among the redwoods on 380 acres, Mount Madonna School (MMS) is a diverse learning community dedicated to creative, intellectual, and ethical growth. MMS supports its students in becoming caring, self-aware, discerning and articulate individuals; and believes a fulfilling life includes personal accomplishments, meaningful relationships and service to society. The program, accredited by the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) and Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), emphasizes academic excellence, creative self-expression and positive character development. Located on Summit Road between Gilroy and Watsonville. Founded in 1979.