This is the ninth year former Big Sandy High School graduate Ellaraine Lockie has provided the English students at BSHS the opportunity to participate in the Walter Gerson Poetry Contest.
Each year Ellaraine Lockie judges students’ poetry, makes comments about the poems and awards students for their excellent poetry and participation. This year is no exception. There are several cash prizes and several honorable mentions.
Two teachers at Big Sandy high school have been involved in the poetry contest. Lauren Clampitt handled the Gerson poems for the first six years they were in existence. This is Kimberly Perry’s first year at handling the Big Sandy part of the contest.
Each year the students in grades 8 through 12 compose a poem. They are all mailed to Ellaraine Lockie in California. Lockie, a published poet whose poems appear monthly in “The Mountaineer”, makes her only requirement for the poems is that they be in free verse. She judges all of the poems, decides on three money winners and several honorable mentions and then mails them back. She funds the prizes each year from her own pocket. This is a very special cause for Lockie and so appreciated by the rest of us. The Big Sandy school has appreciated Lockie’s willingness to allow the contest each year.
Once again “The Mountaineer” will print all of the poems. Thanks to Big Sandy students, Ellaraine Lockie and Kelsey Voeller for making our pages better!
Co- Third place was won by Freshman, Audrey Sipler for Silence Fervid
Alone to the sound of the silence
The senile lady walks along in the rain
The old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere
Whistling wind goes threw the busted out windows and rancid wooden walls
The glass shattering taking in the wind and soundq of rain dripping from the broken gutters
Her feeble fingers run across the wood to the house
The rain coming down and the light dims as the smoke rolls through the air
Memories lost in the sunflower field and damage from the rain
The swing on the tree deviant and old
Leaves gingerly sway to the ground and onto the dirt as the wind gusts
Grabbing the knob opening the door memories open
The house she grew up in between war and euphoria
The house of misinterpretation and assimilation
Consideration of the soul was not an option
Alone to the sound of silence
Not an option
The old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere
A match ignited
Sirens made not so silent
The house
The house not so cold anymore
Crackling sounds of the old wood burning as the fire goes up the silk curtains
Standing in the middle watching the memories go up in flames the sirens ascend
Breathing gone to the exhaust
Sound gone
Life gone
Silence fervid
