In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve been collecting content from you on Facebook and Twitter which we’ll put together at the end of the month to create one long poem. Today though is all about poems you can take on the go- it’s Poem in Your Pocket Day! We’re celebrating with some recent Poetry winners of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as our Writing of the Month highlight. To learn more about Poem in Your Pocket and how you can get involved, visit http://www.nyc.gov/poem

Ripple

The still water ripples
And I wonder why

Did a silver fish
Rise to the surface
For a glimpse of the sun
Before sliding back down to the depths

Or perhaps did the breeze ruffle it
Then die

Or did a solitary raindrop
Leak from the clouds above

I guess I will never know the answer
But maybe just maybe
My question is incorrect

Maybe I should wonder
Why the water was still
In the first place

-Mallory Latsko, Grade 8, Age 13, Sarasota, FL
School: Booker Middle School
Teacher: Joanna Fox
2011 Gold Medal

The Fear of Falling in Love

Stop it, right there, let me cry.
I wipe my tears away.
The late April air is still a bit chilly.
The sea shells glint as the waves pull out.

Stop it, right there. I race down
into cold water. My feet flinch.
The starfish dries up on the sand,
and the ocean’s agleam with blue water.

I say, Stop it. My head is spinning.
I feel the wind, and all I see is
an empty, dark platform.
The next morning I am trembling.

Under the desert sky: Sirius overhead.
I want to sleep tonight and dream
that I am a powerful goddess,
and you are a strong god

who offers protection.
When we are flying in the sky,
our bodies flowing with the stars,
the Sun begins to heat the Earth.

Stop it, right there, don‘t lay your lips
on mine. Please don‘t throw yourself at me
like bow arrows; I want to be able to say,
I was almost kissed by you.

-Jessica Carino
Grade 10, Age 15, New Rochelle, NY
School: New Rochelle High School
Teacher: Michelle Kern
2011 Gold Medal

What I Do When You’re Gone

I take
all the long roads
home, nearly expecting
to be lost, but I never am.
It’s like

how you
can’t drown yourself
because you always come
up gasping, weeping, just
in time.

-Alexandra Franklin
Grade 12, Age 18, Jackson, MS
School: Jackson Preparatory School
Teacher: Paul Smith
2010 Portfolio Gold

Soccer

There is something about an
open field that inspires me
to inaction. To watch the soaring

snowball and let youth grow
distant. I would not fight the wind,
or stake a claim on that knotted energy.

Tall trees salute me. Tall trees salute me.
Where there are too few things with roots, I
tend to grow them.

-Andrew Kahn
Grade 12, Age 17, Hacksack, NJ
School: Bergen County Academy
Teacher: William Hathaway
2010 Gold Medal