Poetry

Poetry·Leila Lakhal, age 12 — A Muslim girl defends her faith and community against stereotypes, describing her culture as a warm blanket woven from love and tradition.

Poetry· — We Can’t Breathe Raeha Khazanchi, 11 We can’t breathe Why can’t we breathe? Because he can’t breathe Why can’t he breathe? Because his breath was stolen from his body We...

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A girl and her father venture into woods to craft a bow and arrows from oak branches, shooting them into the star-filled evening sky.

Poetry·Analise Braddock, age 9 — A circus where performers swap acts transforms into animals and objects overnight, then mysteriously returns to normal the next day.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A 13-year-old observes graduation season from a Manhattan hotel, watching anxious parents at breakfast and contemplating the hidden world awaiting both graduates and herself.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A winter morning walk to art class transforms when the speaker notices the river's muddy ice, mallard, and debris become a still life waiting to be painted.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A poem explores the paradox of someone who embodies contradictions — friend and enemy, peaceful yet at war, standing perpetually between opposing states.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — Morning fog lifts as blackbirds sing and a coyote chases a dog, leaving the speaker wondering who cleared the fog away.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A cast iron staircase in a restored Russian school is the only original element remaining, holding memories of young women who once descended with diplomas and dreams of freedom.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A young visitor to Sobibór death camp touches the train tracks and imagines herself as a child searching for murdered parents.