Results – Sarah Mook Poetry Contest 2024
Thank you for entering the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest.
In this 20th year the contest truly has become international, with winning poems from 8 U.S. states plus Singapore and South Korea!
Nearly 1,000 in total poems came from an additional dozen states, plus India, and Canada. Congratulations to all the poets, and special thanks to the teachers, parents, and mentors who support these young writers. Thank you also to our final judges, Mrs. Olwen Jarvis (Kindergarten, 1-2) and Marie Kane (3-5,6-8, 9-12) for the great care they take in choosing the winning poems!
Since 2018, the Kindergarten (K-only) Awards are sponsored and judged by Sarah's kindergarten teacher Mrs. Olwen Jarvis. Award letters include her comments on each winning poem, a check for the purchase of books for school libraries, as well as custom book plates which acknowledge each poet’s achievement. Mrs. Jarvis writes: “I truly enjoyed reading all of the poems. These children are amazing.” Thank you, Mrs. Jarvis!
See judge Marie Kane's commentary below.
K only 1st Prize “What Falls Softly” by Diana Emerson, MO
K only 2nd Prize “Royal Flowers” by Mei Watanabe, CA
K only 3rd Prize “tree top change” by Sophie Barron, NY
1-2 1st Prize “Frogs in the Pond” by Dorothy Jane Henney, VT
1-2 2nd Prize “Lumberduck” by Charlie Saleh, CA
1-2 3rd Prize “Crunch of Boots” by Saylor Mallory, ME
3-5 1st Prize “Ode to Cow” by Nora Rittenhouse, PA
3-5 2nd Prize “Perfect Through the Eyes of Love” Khoo Yue En Keziah, Singapore
3-5 3rd Prize “Ode to the Snake” Gustave Bellet Kalenine, PA
6-8 1st Prize “Portraits of Gran Through 20th Century Taiwan” by Sierra Elman, CA
6-8 2nd Prize “For a Loquacious Child” by Cherish Grace Kiteck, IN
6-8 3rd Prize “You Don’t Have to be Good” Jacqueline Kiss Branch, ME
9-12 1st Prize “Is He Really?” by Amabel Fernald, ME
9-12 2nd Prize “Elegy with Echoing Thunder” by Alex Lee, South Korea
9-12 3rd Prize “Sumeba Miyako wherever you live you come to love it” by Star Lewis, VA
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.” We are happy to support such a worthy mission, one which aligns so perfectly with the purpose of the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest!
Award letters will be mailed soon to the winning poets. Winning poems will be published later this summer on the website. You will receive 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
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Judge Marie Kane's commentary regarding this year's poems and poets!
For seventeen years, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of being the Final Judge of the Sarah Mook scholastic poetry contest the poems continue to amaze and surprise me with their strength, maturity, and truth-telling. All the finalists’ poems this year are wide-ranging in topic, voice, and poetic dexterity. I immensely enjoyed reading them.
In 2008, that first year, when David Mook asked me to judge 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 a bit 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 grades 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 so appreciated those readers (usually teachers) who took my poetry seriously and encouraged and believed in my voice. Congratulations to any teacher, parent, or anyone else who inspired these young poets.
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 incorporated 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 them.
~ I look for resonant particulars in the poems—descriptive detail after descriptive detail. So, poets should avoid ‘telling’ in favor of ‘showing.’ Don’t tell your reader that someone “is beautiful” describe what makes that person beautiful.
~ Poems that offer specific and cogent insight into life, people, themselves, or the world should correspond with the writer’s grade level or be above it.
~ Poets should strive to be original in his or her language and avoid cliché and overused wording.
~ Poets who take risks by saying things often left unsaid, or who approach a topic in an enlightened or unusual way produce more effective poetry.
~ Poets should not be afraid to use a thesaurus, but not to excess.
~ I read all poems aloud and value the words’ rhythm, purposeful line breaks, and the use of sound devices, such as alliteration, assonance, and consonance.
~ Poets should use metaphor, simile, personification, and other poetic conventions in an innovative way.
~ If the poem rhymes, the rhyme cannot take precedence over the poem’s meaning. Don’t rhyme a poem just to rhyme make sure the rhyme fits the meaning of the poem. The rhyme should be fresh, not predictable.
~ If the poet uses a form (sonnet, villanelle, sestina, etc.) the poem must adhere to its guidelines. Or, if the poet knowingly alters the form, the poem should still be successful.
~ An unusual poetic form will be looked at carefully to judge its effectiveness.
Every year I receive ten poems from David Mook for each age group it is always challenging to choose the top three. I eagerly anticipate reading the poems to gauge how the future of modern poetry is faring. Again, I am not disappointed the thirty finalists in 2024 confirm that the future of poetry rests in very capable hands. The ten finalists in each age groups display talent by using surprising and exact diction, by an adept handling of contemporary issues, and by employing original sensory details. After reading and rereading the thirty 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.
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.