Sarah Mook Poetry Contest

Contest Results 2022

Thank you for entering the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest. We received more than 1,000 entries! Winning poems came from ten different states and from Paris, France! Congratulations to all the poets, and special thanks to all the teachers, parents, and mentors who support these young writers. A letter from Final Judge Marie Kane is copied below. I think you will enjoy reading about her process and criteria for making selections. Thank you, Marie Kane!

The Kindergarten (K-only) Awards are sponsored and judged by Sarah's kindergarten teacher Mrs. Olwen Jarvis. Award letters will include her comments on each winning poem. Mrs. Jarvis writes: “I would love to be able to give something to each child who enters a piece of writing just for encouragement.” I agree, and we do hear from teachers and parents that the contest itself does indeed provide such encouragement. Thank you, Mrs. Jarvis! 

K only 1st Prize “Who Knows” by Elizabeth Kalman, NJ

K only 2nd Prize “Spring” by Lev Martin, ME

K only 3rd Prize “Sisters” by Sameera Kuricheti, DE

K-2 1st Prize “Rolling Its Rhythm” by Violet Hughes, CT

K-2 2nd Prize “Candyland” by Mina Norris, NY

K-2 3rd Prize “What Is a River?” by Mara Occhuizzo, VA

3-5 1st Prize “You Say America” by Maya Ruben, DC

3-5 2nd Prize “The Mother Tree” by Nova Macknik-Conde, NY

3-5 3rd Prize “Peach Tree” by Vivienne Jin, CA

6-8 1st Prize “Kyiv Zoo, Ukraine” by Sierra Elman, CA

6-8 2nd Prize “One Night” by Briella Doherty, ME

6-8 3rd Prize “Glory of the Snow” by Allison Philbrick, ME

9-12 1st Prize “This Autistic Love” by Jenna Nesky, MD 

9-12 2nd Prize “To the Fig Tree on Koločep Island” by Samantha Aikman, VT

9-12 3rd Prize “The bone carvers of Fujian” by Tara Tulshyan, France

Thank you also for your donations! A contribution of $400 was made in Sarah’s name to Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to “inspire a love of reading and writing in children.” CliF has given away more than $2.5 million in books to underserved children, schools, and libraries. I am proud to support a mission so complementary to the purpose of our poetry writing contest.

Award letters will be mailed soon to the winning poets. I will send an email when the poems are posted. Thank you for honoring Sarah and her gift of poetry. Take care and have a fun summer!

Sincerely,

David Mook and Family



I’ve enjoyed being the Final Judge of the Sarah Mook scholastic poetry contest for fifteen years; the poems amaze me with their strength, maturity, and truth-telling. This year’s finalists are wide-ranging in topic choice, voice, and poetic dexterity. I immensely enjoyed reading them. In 2008, that first year, when David Mook asked me to choose the finalists of the contest, the beginning of my reply was, “I am honored that you trust me with this great responsibility.” I had been a high school English and Creative Writing teacher for twenty-eight years, so I gladly anticipated reading those grade-level poems. I felt somewhat unsure about judging the earlier grades and told him so. However, when I received the finalists that first year and in succeeding years, the poems for the earlier stages were delightful and well-done in that they displayed knowledge of the craft of poetry one would think would be beyond younger poets. Like many of these poets, I began writing when I was young and appreciated those readers (usually teachers) who took my poetry seriously and encouraged and believed in my voice. Congratulations to any teacher, parent, or anyone who inspired these young poets in this challenging second pandemic year. The following are poetic skills I look for in the winning poetry in this contest. I’m pleased to say that the top three winners of each age group incorporate many of them.

~ I consider the age of the poet. How a senior high school student writes about nature, loss, or family, for instance, differs significantly from how an elementary student writes about those topics.

~ I look for resonant particulars in the poems—descriptive detail after descriptive detail. Poets should avoid ‘telling’ in favor of ‘showing.’ Don’t tell your reader that someone “is beautiful”; describe what makes that person beautiful.

~ Poets should strive to be original in their language and avoid cliché and overused wording.

~ I appreciate verbs that surprise the reader in their uniqueness. Don’t be afraid to use a thesaurus, but not to excess.

~ Poets should innovatively use metaphor, simile, personification, and other poetic conventions.

~ If the poem rhymes, the rhyme cannot take precedence over the poem’s meaning. Don’t rhyme a poem only to rhyme; make sure the rhymes fit the poem’s meaning. The rhyme should be fresh, not predictable.

~ If the poet uses a form (sonnet, villanelle, sestina, prose, concrete, etc.), the poem must adhere to its guidelines. Or, if the poet knowingly alters the form, the verse should still be successful.

~ An unusual poetic form will be looked at carefully to judge its effectiveness. 

~ The poem should not be obtuse; it’s topic and meaning should be discernable.

~ On the other hand, the poem cannot be too simple or childish.

~ Poems that offer specific insight into life, people, or the world should correspond with the writer’s grade level or be above it.

Every year I eagerly anticipate reading the poems to gauge how the future of modern poetry is faring. Again, I am not disappointed; the finalists confirm that the future of poetry rests in skillful hands. The ten finalists in all age groups display talent by using surprising and exact diction, adept handling of contemporary issues, and by employing original sensory details. I receive ten poems from the preliminary judges for each age group; it is always challenging to choose the top three. After reading and rereading the selections—noting surprising and imaginative imagery, strong voice, mature completion of the poem, adept use of poetic conventions, and lack of revision suggestions needed—I read them aloud, usually multiple times. While there are three specific winners for each age group in this contest, all poets are commended. Congratulations to all the entrants, and special recognition to the winners of this competitive poetry challenge. Topics used are varied: the war in Ukraine, losing a loved one, the solace, loveliness, and intelligence of nature, autism, cultural prejudice, family strife, cities, games, and many other topics.

American poet Robert Frost had the right idea when he said, “I have never started a poem whose end I knew.  Writing a poem is discovering.” These winning poets took Frost’s words to heart; their poems demonstrate how words bring about a ‘discovery’ for the poet … and the reader.

Marie Kane

Judges Comments: 

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