AUM's High School Poetry Contest
The Department of English and Philosophy hosts a high school poetry competition for students in River Region high schools, grades 9-12. The subject of the poem should be tied to the yearly theme of Common Thread, and first prize poems are featured in the printed issue of the magazine.
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First Place
Digital Daze
By: Ifeoluwa Braimoh
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Senior
As the evening hour sips time
My soul sits weary and torn,
Body weighted down by the tasks I leave undone,
And eyes ensnared to the screen behind it all.
In this digital maze, I roam,
Seeking escape, solace from this hell I know,
It whispers promises, yet lets time flow
Like sand slipping through grasping hands,
Leaving my dreams on barren lands.
Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours,
Slipping away in a blur of clicks and swipes
As I am stuck within the agony of wasted days,
And procrastination takes its place within my embrace.
Each morning I vow, “Today will be different.
I am not going to be raptured and swept by this current”,
But the pull of that world remains persistent,
Leaving my responsibilities non-existent.
Regrets sting me like thorns, piercing deep
As promises to myself I always fail to keep
Can I have a chance to break free from this slippery slope?
To turn away distractions, focus my gaze,
And tackle my chores with determined blaze.
I’m not sure if that would work,
Because at the end of it all,
The screen lies awake in its siren call,
Its endless distraction’s thralls.
As the evening hour sips time,
I call for freedom, for a guiding light
But trapped within this sprawl,
I wonder can I really break free at all?
First Place
Hex Code: #0BDA51 (Malachite)
By: Jamesyn Williams
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Senior
I’m scared of the black mirror in front of me.
Soulless in comparison to its life when I turn on my screen
Luring me in with a false sense of security
That exploits my emotional insecurities
Creating toxic impurities - in several shades of green.
It leaves me asking, where’s my sense of community?
Though it’s hard to relate to these accomplishments I see
When at 15 people have their college degrees
Yet my school screams war crimes of mutiny.
That’s why I turned off my phone.
I’m frightened by the way my black mirror listens to me.
It feeds my complacency, enabling incompetence
By finding what I want, before I find what I need
Omit the option of “Chat GPT” it leaves me feeling–
Helpless reeling, with an underlying feeling of inferiority.
That response reads with — Em dash coated phrases —
the only sense of style within miles upon using it
Forget an artist pursuing their dreams, it gives incentive to quit.
Switch the hue, I see red in these spaces.
That’s why I turned off my computer.
I’m terrified of what it really means for me, that this is the death of creativity.
It’s past 8 seconds, the length of attention
The width of a mystery that remains to be interpreted in
“Show don’t tell.” Heightening my sense of urgency.
The curtains are drawn sordidly, tinted blue with solemn tension.
That’s why I turned off my TV.
Second Place
The Dance of Emotion and Algorithm
By: Keyla Mendez Luna
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Senior
In the glow of screens, our shadows dance,
Connections forged in a fleeting glance.
Bytes and Pixels weave stories anew,
Yet echoes of silence invade the view.
Whispers of laughter in threads interlaced,
Yet the warmth of a hug is often misplaced.
Heart emojis flicker, but minds drift apart,
In virtual realms, we forget to restart.
AI crafts dream with a flawless hand,
Yet fails to discern what we truly understand.
Art once born of anguish, now molded by code,
True soul of creation begins to erode.
Still, beneath the surface of this vast tide,
A longing for touch, for a friend by your side.
In likes and shares, we seek to belong,
But the rhythm of life yearns for a song.
So let’s weave our stories with threads of the real,
Embrace the connection, the warmth that we feel.
For in the embrace of the tangible heart,
Humanity thrives as we craft our art.
Third Place
False Truths
By: Skylar Jackson
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Freshman
A bright screen full of lies,
the longer we watch,
the more it poisons our minds.
A thin line between truth and reality,
creating false images that don’t exist.
We forget what’s real and lose ourselves,
chasing an impossible dream,
a bright screen full of lies,
changing who we are and our lives.
Honorable Mentions
Parrots
By: Mikayla Austin
LAMP (Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School), Sophomore
Parrots parroting parrots
Parroting… the greats?
Or the gaunt, depressed, anxious,
Paid to imitate the
Essence of perfection:
Beauty, wealth, fame, power, happiness.
But in actuality, they are still just parrots.
They just don’t parrot people;
They parrot the ever changing,
Ever more elusive
Constructs and trends of society.
Influencers, artists, content creators–even spectators–
Crowd under the same umbrella
Embracing the uniformity of their fellow peers.
The height of fashion trends attempting to hide
The fact that even the best creators
Wear the same threadbare clothing
They so often try to record fixing.
The wear and tear showing the skin–
The anxiety, the depression, the self hate,
And the hunger–underneath.
The downright primal human hunger
For something different,
Unique to put them on top
Smothered away because
Even though the parrot is the prettiest,
They don’t realize that it, too, is also trapped.
The parrots stay in the same cage.
They stay under the same umbrella;
They copy the same trends, ideals and practices;
Not minding the dank, drafty smell they now share.
Hoping that the rain doesn’t
Break down their false facades
And show that they too are only human,
They too have dreams,
That they too are Blessed, Beautiful, and Unique.
But no. The freedom, the fresh air,
The rain, is less appealing
Than the dankness they stand in
Under the same, dull, gray umbrella,
That they imagine to be a rainbow.
So whilst they stand–
Same stance,
Same threadbare clothes, same goals,
Same ideals, same trends
Same cages–
They cast out any outliers.
Unaware that the rainwashed faces of the outcasts
Are not for their own sorrow, but for
The people still under the umbrella,
Unable, no, afraid… to embrace the rain.
Parrots: beautiful, bright–trapped,
To repeat the good, the bad, the
Mistakes that are not their own.
Trapped by constructs, chasing images on their screen.
Chasing images in their cage of those higher in
Status, fame, and power.
So they boldly mock the escapees, not
Realizing, that they themselves waste away,
Like a parrot in a cage.