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.
Follow Us
First Place
Echos of Montgomery
By: Lilian Speigner
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Senior
In Montgomery
the night hums with sirens,
a lullaby too broken to soothe the young.
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Streetlights flicker like candles,
burning for names we whisper…
names too heavy to lift past our throats.
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Mothers pray on porches,
their voices trembling against the wind.
And we the youth stand in the crossfire
of what was… and what’s left.
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We wear grief like denim,
torn in the same places our hearts are.
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We grow up learning the sound
of footsteps behind us,
learning how to breathe shallow
when blue lights paint the street.
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​Still, hope keeps tapping on our ribs,
asking to be let out.
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Montgomery is more than mourning.
She’s memory.
She’s melody.
She’s the drumbeat of every child
still dancing despite the darkness.
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It should mean a circle,
hands locked tighter than fear,
voices rising higher than the shots
that echo at night.
We are not silent.
We are not finished.
We are the echo that refuses to fade.
For the future we’re still fighting for.
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A Montgomery
where peace ain’t a dream…
It’s a promise kept.
Second Place (Tie)
Spilled Milk
By: Tashod Jones
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Sophomore
Because I love you,
Words that are uttered between every lashing.
Whip!
The belt is tearing into my soul.
Each lashing tears into my sense of self.
This hurts me more than it hurts you.
The welts are coming in.
Are they on you, too?
So how does it hurt you?
Where’s your bruise?
Why does your love cause pain?
Why not speak?
Over spilled milk?
My dignity was strangled and wrung out for
spilled milk,
Because I needed to learn a lesson.
You should already know better.
But I don't.
I don’t know why,
Or why is beating the first choice?
Because my mom did it to me.
Perpetual.
The binding of trauma holds strong,
As strong as her grip on that belt,
Something she’ll never let go.
Just like her mom,
And her mom.
That’s just how Black folks do it,
How we’ve always done it,
And I won’t stop doing it.
I turned out fine,
So will you.
Why hit?
Because
That’s how we’ve always done it,
This way,
The wrong way.
Since c.1500,
They beat us,
So we beat each other.
Start young
To continue the cycle.
Second Place (Tie)
From Survival to Change
By: Summer Stanford
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Sophomore
We exist in a space we call community
not a slogan, not a grant proposal,
but a living contradiction.
A place that knows poverty by first name
in a nation where the rich get richer
and the poor grow thicker,
stacked like stories no one wants to publish.
You’ve heard it all before.
Of course you have.
So why aren’t we doing something?
Because doing begins with listening.
With honoring the past that still walks beside us,
with naming the systems that profit from our quiet,
with refusing the lie that survival is enough.
Here, creativity is local and loud:
murals argue with brick walls,
drums remember what textbooks skip,
songs stitch together voices.
We imagine a future
not handed down like a fragile heirloom,
but built, calloused, collaborative, unfinished.
This future is grounded in change,
in collective growth,
in the radical act of staying
and making room.
So this is an invitation:
come as you are, bring your voice,
cracked, fluent, angry, hopeful.
Let it braid with ours.
Let us grow toward one another,
until community is no longer a word we use,
but a practice we live.
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Third Place
Still Here
By: Jayden Rudolph
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Senior
They look at our skin before they listen to our voices. Count our differences before they can count our dreams.
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We learned at an early age how to be careful, how to be strong-minded, how to carry our pain quietly.
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Some of us come from stories written with struggle, from names that were changed, from tears they don’t put in history books.
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We were always told to wait.
To be patient.
To be grateful.
Even when this cruel world takes from us first.
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But look at us
still loving,
still praying,
still here.
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When one of us fails,
we fail together.
When one of us shines,
we all shine together.
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Our skin is not a burden.
It is a legacy.
It is survival.
It is a privilege.
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We are not just people of color.
We are people of strength.
We are still here because of it.
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When will we be seen for what we are?
Who we are?
We deserve that at least.
Honorable Mentions
When Hate is Normalized
By: Zulimar Reyes
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School.
This land was built for freedom, liberty, and justice.
Claimed that this was a safe space
where all are welcomed.
Freedom is spoken in more than one dialect,
prayed in more than one language.
Built by skin darkened under the sun.
Blaring sirens now replace conversations,
faces hidden for protection.
Any moment your loved one could be
threatened, assaulted, killed.
The slightest hint of caramel
a sign of danger.
Sun kissed people now a target.
A last name now turned into a story.
A parking lot, a school, a church,
anywhere.
All turning into crime scenes.
Why?
Not sure.
“An illegal alien!”
No. No one is illegal on stolen land.
Killing for your kid is justified
but crossing a border to give them better opportunities is not?
Normal days on the way to work
turned into fear of being threatened, assaulted, killed.
For being the wrong shade for god-fearing Americans.
“Go back to your country!”
As if America wasn’t built by immigrants.
As if many aren’t the backbone of the U.S.
Never credited nor considered.
Pushed aside because they weren’t pure snow.
A country tearing apart
from the inside out.
Diversity is never to blame.
Hatred is.
Community isn’t all the same.
It’s people from all different backgrounds,
some rolling their R’s,
others having a soft voice, others sharp
all adamant that they do belong
Because they do.
They have every right to be here just as much as anyone else.
You cannot claim unity and justice for all.
While sitting quietly while others get hurt.
You cannot honor the past,
by repeating its horrible mistakes.
We are meant to learn from it.
Not live it again.
The Weight of Falling things
By: Ayannah Boone
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Sophomore
I am rain. I am snow.
Both leave you cold, annoyed, and often depressed.
They keep you shut inside, reaching for warmth
while I press myself against your windows, uninvited.
Rain disrupts your rhythm.
It falls heavily, insistently,
a weight on your shoulders, a stone in your chest.
You take so long to dry.
The dampness clings to you like a shadow with hands,
refusing to let go.
Did I keep you from flourishing, like a storm that clouds your sky and dims your light?
Was I a risk to your well-being?
Did I shrink your world beneath low, brooding skies?
Was I an irritation, a quiet ache,
a reminder of every moment you wished you could forget?
I am rain. I am snow.
Both leave you cold, annoyed, and often depressed.
Snow brings its own challenges,
sharper, brighter, more merciless.
Your fingers and face go numb beneath my cold demeanor.
Was I dangerous?
Was I the blizzard you tried to outwalk?
I'll admit it:
I leaned on you too much.
Not as a reason to live, but as something more profound,
a rare warmth in a life made of silence and small rooms.
You melted the walls I had built around myself,
until fear drove me to rebuild them.
If I could speak clearly back then,
I would have told you I was sorry.
I am no saint, but I tried to reach you,
to hear you, even when my own voice froze in my throat.
So when you shut me out, I wasn’t surprised.
I never wanted to trap you or make you feel overwhelmed; my presence was never meant to be a burden but a reflection of inner pain.
I knew you were tired, and so you stepped away.
I cannot be angry. I will not pretend to be wounded.
I will not twist myself into a victim or whisper empty apologies.
I will take responsibility.
Knowing that acknowledging my struggles is the first step toward healing,
the first step toward connecting with others.
I only wish I had known how to keep the flood from rising.
Now I sit with the cold you left behind,
the discomfort, the emotional strain,
the quiet imprint of your hatred,
your silent loathing,
the memory of a fire I once warmed myself beside
now reduced to ash.
And yet,
I hope not everyone will see me as a storm to avoid.
Maybe someone else will find comfort in my rainfall,
solace in my snowfall.
Maybe someone will be the warmth that softens my edges
instead of fleeing from them.
Maybe peace waits somewhere above the clouds,
a gentler place for me to rest,
to breathe,
to thaw.
I do not want to be the gray veil over your head,
the sting on your skin,
the echo of ruined plans and darker days.
When the rain hardens into snow, the world grows quieter,
but the quiet carries its own kind of dread.
Cold bites. It seeps.
It numbs thought, feeling, memory.
Frost glitters beautifully,
But even beauty can hurt.
I am rain. I am snow.
I strip away the easy comforts of warmth and motion,
leaving you face to face with stillness, solitude,
and the fragile limits of your own endurance.
I do not want to be.
