In April, the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings (CEEAS) held its first annual poetry contest for juveniles in secure facilities. The response was tremendous; more than a thousand submissions were entered in the contest.
From those, a group of third, second- and first-place winners were selected in a process headed up by lead judges R. Dwayne Betts, a poet who spent time in the adult prison system as a juvenile, and Chelsea Clinton, a human rights advocate and daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Imprint of Social Change will publish all of the winners throughout the week, and conclude on Friday with an overview of how CEEAS developed and executed this project. Today, we start with the third place winners:
Poem Title: A Place Called Home
Poet: Nathan
Facility: Chesterfield Detention Home School, Chesterfield, VA
The fog descends upon us
Wrapping us in a quilt
Of white felt,
The warm summer rain
Washes you away,
Showing old wheat fields
Hunched over from the breeze,
While the wind blows leaves
That is beautiful to see,
The crunch of gravel
As cars travel,
Make a symphony
For the city,
Then night comes
With brilliant stars
Piercing windows
From afar,
Constellations from the Milky Way
Leave when it’s time
For a new day.
Poem Title: As the Grass Grows
Poet: Stephen
Facility: Hope Partnership at MacLaren YC, Woodburn, OR
As the grass grows…
a clock ticks
The earth spins
A little boy becomes a man
God holds the world in His hand
As the grass grows…
Gun shots in the midst of a city
A little boy sucking at his mother’s breast grows to bust Simi’s Bang Bang!
As the grass grows…
A young girl becomes a victim of rape and filled with hate so deep
She thinks chuck this purse
grab a skirt and hit the streets
For somethin’ to eat
Sellin’ her body for a meal or a couple of bills
As the grass grows…
A mother on welfare with several kids strung out on heroin
Applies for a job that she’ll never get
As the grass grows…
A bomb explodes and new orphans feel an orphanage home
As the grass grows…
Another baby aborted
As the grass grows…
A loving father loses his kids in a divorce
A 90 year old woman loses the love of her life in the middle of the night
A child starves in a country hungry for life
It can only be so long until that AIDS infected teen spreads her disease
out of a love she thought was deep
But he left her on her knees for another chick then another
as the cycle repeats in the mirror
over and over again
‘I’m not scared’ as he puts the rope around his head
Stepping off the chair with a note that reads
‘I love Jimmy and if being gay is wrong in life then I want to be dead
As the grass grows…
You never see growing grass as a ticking time bomb.
You never bend down and say this strand of grass
Was an airplane crash
Or this football field is a graveyard
But as time continues our planet accepts disaster,
We fall deeper in sin than we began
and become victims of our own demise.
So be aware as we laugh and smile pretending life is chocolate and flowers.
Under your eyes and beneath your feet the grass continues growing…
And disaster continues to peak.
As the grass grows…
Poem Title: Tell Me About Me
Poet: Angie
Facility: Three Lakes High School, Albany, OR
Tell me why I feel abandoned
When I abandoned you
Tell me how I’m honest
When I don’t know the truth
Tell me why I sit in darkness
When I could be in the light
Tell me how I’m such a fighter
When I don’t know how to fight
Tell me why I write so much
When I have nothing to say
Tell me how I’m always fine
When nothing is okay
Tell me why I want to walk
When I have nowhere to go
Tell me how I am so high
When I feel so very low
Tell me why I run away
When I have nothing to run from
Tell me how I’m still alive
When I make myself so numb
You can’t tell me can you
No one knows me like I do
Tell me how that can be true
When I don’t know as well as you
Poem Title: “Sun Up to Sun Down”
Poet: Timmy
Facility: St. Johns Juvenile Correctional Facility, St. Augustine, FL
From sun up to sun down I think about how I’m doing 8 to 9.
I sit in my cell and pray to God that I ignore negativity so I won’t catch time.
I think about the situation I put my parents through and all the money they spent when they could have spent the money on the loans they signed.
As day by day goes by I hear and see the same people eating nasty food and going to school all year round. I wish I could have changed my mind.
I sit in my cell and think of that one girl, the one that hugged and kissed me all the time.
I wish I could go back in time to realign my mind.
I sit in my cell and think about how my life would be like if I haven’t committed a crime.
So now you see, I’m doing 8 to 9.
Poem Title: Split Personality
I’m the girl dazed and confused
I’m the girl wearing rotten shoes
I’m the work who’s Always on the news
I’m the girl that smells like booze
I’m the girl Askin’ for a Dollar or two
I’m the girl that’s lying to you
I’m the girl skipping to her own tune
I’m the girl who loves to make a Mess
I’m the girl with Tracks on her neck
I’m the girl who steals with no regret
I’m the girl everyone says doesn’t care
I’m the girl with bugs in her hair
I’m the girl who sleeps under the bridge
I’m the girl using Dirty rigs
I’m the girl who screws fellows for a fix
I’m the girl deep down in the Mix
I’m the girl who needs to shower
I’m the girl dopesick in the early hours
I’m the girl flying a sign on the corner
I’m the girl in line at the soup kitchen
I’m the girl everyone thinks is a bitch
I’m the girl domestically beaten
I’m the girl without feelings
I’m the girl daddy gave up on
I’m the girl whose life’s like a rerun
I’m the girl stick in this place
I’m the girl people say can’t change
I’m the girl waiting for the next train
I’m the girl, fingers stained with nicotine
I’m the girl whose life feels like a dream
I’m the girl singing for spare change
I’m the girl who no shoes on my feet
But I’m Also A girl who wants to….
Achieve her goals
Grow strong and move forward
Earn back some Respect and Quit the dope
be Able to look myself in the eyes
Do something and fail, but be able to say that I Tried
Learn from my mistakes
get educated, use my Brain
Quit hurting my body and get healthy Again
Overcome the streets, And one day own a home
break these chains off and make my life my own
feel secure And safe in my skin once more
wants to stop causing her loved ones harm
wake up and not wish I was dead one day
work through and recover from the strife & and pain
believe in myself, end the destructive cycle I’ve made
Treat myself with dignity and be the girl
Everyone knows I was born to be.