original perspective

Poetry·Colin Johnson, age 11 — A golden trout waits beneath tourmaline water for flies to land, then strikes with predatory precision before settling into warm mud to sleep.

Story·Emily deLisle, age 10 — An Egyptian servant girl who is secretly the goddess Isis helps a hippo mother killed by hunters become the goddess Tawret, reuniting her with her family in the afterlife.

Poetry·Alyssum Quaglia, age 12 — A landlord tends his garden at dawn, moving through dewy grass to pull weeds and care for lettuce and strawberries in the quiet morning.

Story·Veronica Engler, age 13 — A dragon awaits knights coming to slay her, remembering her murdered family. When she recognizes her brother's killer, she chooses mercy over revenge before dying.

Poetry·Lotus Shen, age 11 — A catalog poem traces things that vanish — vapor trails, insects, melting snowflakes, flowing water — finding the hidden nature of everyday disappearances.

Poetry·Sandra Detweiler, age 13 — A lyrical meditation on climbing above fog to find mountain peaks rising like islands from a sea of clouds below.

Poetry·Caroline Smyth, age 12 — A young writer explores the paradox of constant transformation and fixed identity, finding that despite daily reinvention, the same eyes witness it all.

Poetry·Ellanora Lerner, age 13 — A teenager finds solitude at abandoned railroad tracks, contemplating how nature reclaims human progress and feeling the ghost of trains that once passed.

Story·Hannah Mayerfield, age 10 — A reincarnated blue jay, now human, returns to a fountain where they once drank as a bird, mourning lost flight until moonlight brings new hope.

Poetry·Rainer Pasca, age 9 — A nine-year-old observes a river scene at an arboretum, recording nature's details while a speedboat disrupts the peaceful meditation of water, birds, and trees.