lyrical prose

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·Elina Juvonen, age 13 — A prose poem traces the precise moment when ocean and sky merge at twilight, finding that exact blue-black in the speaker's own eyes.

Poetry·Ella Biehn, age 12 — A child recalls dancing in autumn leaves before moving south, where a photograph preserves what geography has taken away.

Poetry·Samantha Ji Ping Wainapel, age 13 — A young writer rediscovers the exhilaration of flight, watching the world shrink below while yearning to experience the sky without the plane's protection.

Poetry·Hannah Dastgheib, age 11 — A child falls into autumn leaves and experiences a sensory rush of memories, scents, and sounds that blur into a single moment of seasonal joy.

Poetry·Gertie-Pearl Zwick-Schachter, age 12 — A drowsy afternoon in a garden becomes a meditation on the sensory pull between nature's beauty and the body's desire for rest.

Poetry·Ella Fasciano, age 13 — A delicate observation of trying to help an injured insect fly again, capturing the fragility of both the creature and the moment of attempted rescue.

Poetry·Meghan Waldron, age 13 — A summer evening unfolds through sensory details — grass brushing knees, bats circling overhead, bullfrogs calling goodnight as day turns to twilight.

Poetry·Izzah Khairi, age 13 — Night transforms a mountain landscape into a cosmic performance where moon, wind, trees, and lake become musicians preparing for the stars' appearance.

Poetry·Bethany Duff, age 11 — A meditation on wordless connection between living beings — running with dogs, dancing, holding babies — and how we lose this silent language as we grow older.