Poetry

Poetry·Ava Persinger, age 12 — A young observer discovers the ocean's hidden music — from crashing waves to a tiny crab's clicking claws to shells clinking in the depths.

Poetry·Sydney Pardo, age 13 — A poem of lost childhood intimacy between cousins or friends, marked by shared memories of orchards, butterfly funerals, and the gulf that opens when one becomes a teenager.

Poetry·Sonia Bhaskaran, age 9 — Two birds chase through the air, forming a brief circular pattern in their acrobatic flight before landing and returning the world to its usual sounds.

Poetry·Matteo Vita Harris — Speaking of sorrow and happiness. Telling a short story with a new voice. Speaking with a mouth of words. Soft as a baby’s cheek. Poem.

Poetry·Nadia Rossy, age 12 — A girl draws a smiley face on a foggy bus window during a rainy morning, creating her own small moment of brightness against the gloom.

Poetry·Isaac Walsh, age 10 — A six-year-old loses his orange Croc over the Stone Arch Bridge and imagines it floating down the Mississippi to Louisiana, carrying its mystery.

Poetry·Elisabeth Martin, age 13 — A poem traces the cycle of grief from fresh loss through fading memory to sudden, sharp remembrance that brings the pain flooding back.

Poetry·Vincenzo Ruggiero, age 13 — A boy describes his after-school routine with his dog Bella, from her greeting at the window to playing fetch, bath time, and bedtime.

Poetry·Lucy Hoak, age 13 — A child builds an elaborate fairy house with writing materials for messages, abandons belief when no note appears, missing signs that fairies visited but cannot write.

Poetry·Isabelle Zeaske, age 10 — A spring walk reveals birch shadows, a fern sprout, and a plastic bag caught in a pine tree, its snap drowned by a chickadee's song.