Three TMS Ninth-Grade Poets Win Prizes in County-Wide Poetry Contest

Pictured (left to right) TMS Poets; Francesca, Emma C, Emma D

Only 60 poems out of the 700 poetry submissions from Marin County public and private high school students made it through the four rounds of judging by a panel of local poets. Of those 60, 40 of the poems were selected for publication in the 2011 contest anthology, by Marin County Poet Laureate C.B. Follett, the final judge of the 22nd Annual Marin County High School Poetry Contest, an event sponsored by the Marin Poetry Center. Three TMS ninth-grade students--Emma Cormia, Emma Delaporte, and Francesca Glaspell--won awards. Their work was honored at a special ceremony at the Mill Valley Golf Club April 27th; it also has been published in this year's anthology.

(For more information on how to purchase the 2011 contest anthology email anthology@marinpoetrycenter.org or visit http://www.marinpoetrycenter.org/)

The Poems

What Do I Know of Love

by Francesca Glaspell

Like a good book, unabridged.

We were spilling over the sink,

Colors sailing past the lines,

Falling off the pages

And I can't hold someone's heart,

When I can't even hold my own,

And I don't know what to do

Because an object the size of my fist,

Has knocked me out.

Dead poets howling from books,

Telling me what to feel,

Not what to do.

I can't love you like the rest.

The feelings that nest within us,

Between the lungs, were growing stronger,

And I won't let them fly away.

We are maps being deciphered.

We are instruments and,

God is playing symphonies.

I find you native,

I know you foreign,

And I love you blind.

Like a moth burned by desire,

We didn't learn our lesson,

For once we burned for something more

Than our own.

(Inspired by "One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII" by Pablo Neruda)

Love Poem

by Emma Delaporte

I love it when she bites my feet in bed,

I tell a friend of mine.

The old woman trudging along behind us thinks I'm a pervert.

I think she's a snoop.

My friend laughs. I love it when she licks my nose.

It's gross when her tongue gets up my nose though.

Agreed.

But I love it.

I'm sure to continue this conversation without letting the snoop know

That I'm talking about my cat.

I love the weird patch of white hair she has on her belly.

Yeah it's adorable.

God I love her.

Agreed.

I'd Know You Anywhere

by Emma Cormia

And sometimes just in passing

I'd swear I saw your face

In traffic late at night

A familiar silhouette drawn by the headlights

Of my car next to yours

But I know

It is just a trick of the rain

I saw you yesterday, in transit to the bank

Funny how city buses make people

Look like someone

Just like you