7th Teen Poetry Contest Winners Announced

Our poetry reception last Thursday evening went very well. Once again we had a truly outstanding speaker in poet and educator Erica Funkhouser. Ms. Funkhouser donated one of her poetry books, “Earthly,” to the reception raffle. Amy Thissell won the book. Ms. Funkhouser also donated a copy of "Earthly" to the Library. It will be ready for checkout sometime next week.

This year 12 teens entered 19 poems.11 poems were from middle school age writers, and 8 were from high school age writers.Three poems per entrant could be submitted.Scoring was done independently by three judges who were given copies of the poems without any information about name or age.The judges used a rubric to score each poem.This year our judges were Library Director Jan Dempsey, Library Assistant Director Rob Pondelli, and Dan Sklar, an English professor at Endicott College. Many many thanks to our judges!

And, many thanks to the Friends of the Hamilton-Wenham Library who provided funds for the cash prizes and for refreshments at the reception. Most of the Library's teen advisory board, the Teen Think Tank attended the reception and helped with the raffle and to clean up. Thank you Teen Think Tank!

The winners of this year's poetry contest are:

Emma Sullivan, Best Entry Grades 6-8, for ""Perfect" Teen"

Lily Knudsen, Best Entry Grades 9-12, for "Im(Perfect)"

Amy Thissell, 2nd Place Grades 9-12, for "Perfection in Society"
Emma Sullivan, 2nd Place Grades 6-8, for "Words"
Lily Knudsen, Honorable Mention, for "Nostalgia"
Alex Diefenbach, Honorable Mention, for "Housecat"

Nathan Giarnese, Honorable Mention, for "Summer"

Audrey Kiarsis, Honorable Mention, for "What is Perfection"

Read all the poems on the poetry page: http://informedteenshwlibrary.blogspot.com/p/poetry.html