Poetry Contest

Chatterbox: Pudding's Place

Poetry Contest

Poetry Contest

Well, we haven't had one of these in a while, have we? Time for a new one, I say! Welcome, resident poets!

The rules are pretty simple. I am the first judge. I will give you a theme, and you must write a poem relating to the theme. Be creative with your interpretations! I will then judge the entries by a set date, and the winner will then be the next judge, and set the next theme. And so on, and so forth. 

The first theme will be... *dramatic drumroll*

Stars! Whether you chose to write about the kind of stars you wish on, or the kind that take the stage, I will be eagerly awaiting your sparkly, shiny, beautiful poems. Have them in by... Saturday, March 18. Two weeks. Sound fair? 

I hope to see your poems soon!

~Booksy <3 

submitted by Booksy Owly
(March 4, 2017 - 8:58 pm)

back to the Pudding's Place

Congrats everyone! All of your poems were really neat this round~

The new theme sounds pretty fun, too!

submitted by New theme!, it's Jaybells
(August 14, 2021 - 3:48 am)

My words are made of

porcelain,

way-too-fragile,

tip-toeing across the page,

looking for a safe place to hide

so they don't fall and shatter.

Pretty designs that mean nothing,

chips on the top from when I dropped it

last summer,

trying to make it look right next to

ask the others.

 

See, the little push that you gave that poem

wasn't why it fell, 

wasn't why I had to

sweep up the bits

and tip-toe around the space

for the next week,

afraid off getting shards

stuck in my feet.

No, it was the fault of the

narrow ledge

I had it perched on.

You were just trying to pick it up,

examine it,

but I put it there thinking you would just

look.

 

You see,

my words are made of

porcelain, 

old,

brittle,

used.

They came with a warning label

"fragile: handle with care"

and I wish I could handle them with

not a care in the world,

but my words are made of

porcelain,

and they weren't built to bend. 

 

 

 

Oh my gosh, my CAPTCHA nearly just said a slur - 

submitted by WordSong, age Forever, Under a rock
(August 14, 2021 - 3:31 pm)

This is pretty short and vaguely inspired by the poem Hawthorne wrote for the theme "edit" a few rounds back. I guess it could've been longer but I'm proud of it nonetheless and I hope you like it!

 

Priceless 

Endless shelves of valuables

On either side of me

Mainly porcelain behind glass.

I can see you but I can’t reach you,

You’re too deep in your world of perfection.

You understand I’m here, but

I’d have to turn into a statue of porcelain 

For you to even glance back at me—

And I can’t help but think that I would.

 

 

 

Don’t you see? I want to scream.

But I know that you don’t see.

All you see are the jewels and the gold

All you see is what’s everything to you but nothing to me

And the worst part?

You don’t even notice.

You don’t even understand that you don’t really know I exist,

Or that you do but you don’t think it matters.

No.

Because you can fall in love with a diamond,

But I’ll never be worth a cent to you.

 

 

submitted by Periwinkle, age Pi, Somewhere in the stars
(August 14, 2021 - 5:40 pm)

Porcelain is something delicate

Like what they think a woman is;

I wish I could have taken you away back then

Maybe then I could have kept you innocent--

Maybe then could have taped together your chipped and cracked bits,

And re-finished your dulling shine,

Before it was to late:

Before you broke completely. 

But I didn't.

 

You probably wouldn't have been happier anyway.

It's selfish, I know, but maybe then you would be safe,

Even if you were upset with my interference. 

You're just a porcelain doll in their eyes, after all:

You need to be protected, they think. They knew but didn't care.

I know you're not made of ceramic, though, you're human. 

 

Still, they trapped you in that gilded cage,

Convinced the outside world you were happy

Since they were keeping you safe by clipping your wings and chaining you down,

Then proceeded to shatter your brittle heart. 

I see you as human.

Humans can break too. 

 

I knew but let you choose your own fate

Since humans deserve to choose, I thought.

Maybe I should have just thought of you as a porcelain doll

Maybe then I would have been able to build you new ceramic wings

Then you could fly away-- from them, from me;

Away from us all

Yes, I could have set you free.

But I didn't.

 

And now I'm the only one who remembers you enough

To pick up your shattered body,

Lying in smashed pieces on the floor.

I'm sorry for not helping you in life.

So instead, I'll build a you new body,

One with wings that'll let you soar

'Till your broken spirit is willing 

To rest eternally, once more.

submitted by Jaybells, age Obscure, Lost in the Universe
(August 14, 2021 - 8:26 pm)

I'm not sure if someone has done something similar to this, but here is my poem! I'm pretty proud of this!:

Broken mind~

My mind is like porcelain,

fragile, 

breakable.

beautiful but

not perfect.

expensive but

not worth it

to some people.

detailed but

not uncommon.

unique but

not original.

My mind is like porcelain, broken porcelain.

craked and shattered.

smashed and battered.

covered in glue 

that's trying to hold a

million pieces together.

it's 

covered in glue 

that's hiding all 

the best parts. 

it's incredible,

yet so beaten that i can't tell

what it's worth anymore.

people say it's great,

but all i see are the cracks,

the imperfections.

it's got missing pieces, 

sharp edges.

it can hurt you, cut into you.

it's such a mess.

it breaks under pressure.

it hurts.

but it's all i have.

all my mind is

is porcelain. 

submitted by Spellbound , age 12, nowhere to be found
(August 15, 2021 - 5:52 pm)

Porcelain: A hard, translucent ceramic made by firing and glazing fine clay.

I admired your calm, Grandma.

Your serenity as unruffled as the tree shaded figures you painted on the white surface of your pottery.

Your emotions as smooth and unchanging as the shining glaze on your ware.

I envied you, Grandma.

I, like the shattered pieces of your jug that I dropped and tried to fix.  Whole, but still broken.  Misshapen and unwanted.

I wanted to be like you, Grandma.

Respected and acknowledged.  Self sufficient.

But what I didn't realize was how you had become that way.  The fires you had gone through that hardened you; like the kiln hardened your art. 

I didn't realize your serenity was the glaze you put over yourself, to protect your hardened, delicate self.

Grandma, you were just as whole as I was. 

submitted by Peregrine
(August 20, 2021 - 3:44 pm)
submitted by Anonymous topper, age Top, ByTOP!!!
(August 22, 2021 - 2:25 pm)
submitted by PeriTOP!
(August 28, 2021 - 6:43 am)
submitted by PeriTOP!, age Pi, Somewhere topping threads
(August 28, 2021 - 2:06 pm)
submitted by @Luminescence, age Judging?
(August 29, 2021 - 1:47 pm)

hi! I'm so sorry, I know judging was yesterday- I promise I'm working on it. I'll have it out by hopefully the end of today, but if not it might not be until Friday because I have swim practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and a seventh grade pool party on Thursday. But the goal is for it to be out today. I apologize for the delay, thank you for all your submissions- I love them all.

submitted by Luminescence, age 12, Atlantis, she/her
(August 29, 2021 - 2:02 pm)
Three days late and way too long, the judging is finally out! I’m so sorry for the wait- y’all are incredible poets and judging was really hard, on top of the first day of school + joining a swim team + the fact that I’m incapable of being concise and it took me several paragraphs to explain how amazing each of your poems were, I’m really happy to finally be sharing this, and I apologize again for how long it took me. I hope it’s at least mostly worth the wait. FIRST UP, Honorable Mentions in No Particular Order (As Always!): 
SPELLBOUND- HONORABLE MENTION!
This is such a good poem- and comparing a mind to a broken piece of porcelain is really (what’s the word) accurate? I love how this poem takes a cracked broken thing and turns it into something beautiful.
I love the comparisons, too, you do such a wonderful job of showing exactly how minds are like porcelain without sounding like an essay (which honestly, is hard).
The tone of this poem isn’t resigned or sad though, it’s more of a neutral observation with a little bit of “but-I-wouldn’t-have-it-any-other-way” mixed in.
This is such an abstract yet organized and logical way of thinking of a mind and it stretched my brain in weird directions despite being so, so, relatable. Beautiful job <3
PEREGRINE- HONORABLE MENTION!
Okay so first of all, I absolutely love what you did with the prompt. Including the dictionary definition and then writing a poem inspired by that was such a good idea.
I love how you took the idea of “firing and glazing” and ran with it, compared it to all the people in the world who act so composed and adult but are really freaking out inside all the time.
I think the moral of this story is that everyone’s going through something or went through something or will go through something, no matter how put-together they seem- and I also think that’s a very comforting thought. Knowing you’re not the only one sometimes makes things a lot easier.
I also really like how your poem is writing as a letter to someone (sort of?). It’s also kind of a reflection on the speaker’s past self and I love that too.
This is really beautiful, Peregrine. Idk if this has been because I just haven’t been paying attention or if you just haven’t shared much of your poetry, but I would love to see more of it <3
PERIWINKLE - THIRD PLACE!
Peri, this is amazing. And there are so many different ways to interpret this. A few I’ve come up with: friends taken for granted, neglected rich kid, watching your best friend and/or significant other become someone unrecognizable, fading to a background, gold is more than all that glitters, I could continue but I’ll spare you.
But I feel like the most common theme is invisibility, whether someone never cared or just doesn’t anymore. It’s loving someone who doesn’t deserve it and no one ever returning the favor. Maybe it’s like screaming as loud as you can, but everyone seems to be wearing ear plugs. 
The lines that hit me especially hard: “No./Because you can fall in love with a diamond,/But I’ll never be worth a cent to you.”
Hearts break, tears fall, the silence is deafening, and in that moment, I think that maybe the listener will finally turn around. Or maybe not. Either way, those lines are an almost shocking way to end and I love it.
Something powerful is said there. This poem flows really beautifully from resigned to frustrated to bitter. The speaker is invisible until they are worth something to the listener, and they are only worth something when they are something to be bought and sold. 
Which is both a really powerful statement about humanity and a really powerful way to show invisibility at the same time.
There’s so much more to unpack that I haven’t. Every. Single. Line is quite literally loaded with meaning and emotion. Amazing job <33
JAYBELLS - SECOND PLACE!
Wow. I’ve read this poem so many times and I keep seeing different things every time I do. My favorite lines are the first ones- “Porcelain is something delicate/Like what they think a woman is.”
This poem is something of an apology, but also something of a story. It’s what you could have done, what you (maybe) should have done, what you wish you’d done.
One of the things I like about a couple of your poems is how they hint at sexism and feminism without making the whole poem about that, and I think that this layered that in really well- it talks about how the speaker could have protected someone from sexism, how the a lot of the world views women (“You’re just a porcelain doll in their eyes, after all:”). Porcelain is such a good metaphor for that, beautiful but breakable.
But I think it’s also about how you can’t protect the people you love from the world forever- eventually that would become a cage too, and maybe there are things you should have done better, but reality is never perfect.
On top of all that, the way this poem flows is amazing. You manage to convey the empty feeling of guilt and almost nostalgic regret so well, especially in the last two stanzas. I love how the tone shifts from blaming the world to blaming oneself.
Honestly, this is amazing, Jay, and you are an amazing poet, too <3
WORDSONG - FIRST PLACE!
I love this poem, how it’s a poem about poetry, and about how other people see your poetry. There’s so much I could read into it, but I think the meaning I’m getting from it is our poetry is our vulnerability, our words are our weakness, despite the fact that our lines of letters are little slivers of life, cut out and saved in a scrap book of sorts, despite the fact that at the same time, our words are our strength.
I guess poetry is like opening your heart and taking the most important parts of it and swiping it across a page in the form of ink and words and language and then putting it back and sewing it up again?
Or at least, that’s the kind of poem that’s made of porcelain, the kind that you’re almost afraid to share.
But deeper meanings aside, this is also just a beautifully written poem. I love the way it flows- the regret and nostalgia in the first stanza, the sadness and slightly apologetic explanations of the second, and the almost self-deprecating wishfulness of the last stanza. It’s a subtle emotional rollercoaster, however those two descriptions may contradict each other. And the repetition of the lines “My words are made of/porcelain” really adds a lot.
I think my favorite lines were “but my words are made of/porcelain,/and they weren’t built to bend.” Beautiful <33
submitted by JUDGING!! FINALLY!!, age 12, it's Lumi, she/her
(August 31, 2021 - 8:33 am)
submitted by TOP! JUDGING IS OUT!
(August 31, 2021 - 9:15 am)

Eeeeeeeeeee thank you so much! I did not expect to win. I love how you described my poem, by the way. It's just - yay. Everybody else's poems were so amazing and creative, as soon as I saw the second entry pop up I was certain I wasn't getting first place. I do really like that poem, though.

Anyways. The theme is 'clandestine'. I've been obsessed with that word for a while, and I'm super excited to see what you come up with. If you don't know what it means, look it up, I can't really explain it. The judging date is September 14th, and I might be late but hopefully not.

*thumbs up* Go write! 

submitted by WordSong, age Forever, Under a rock
(August 31, 2021 - 3:47 pm)

Thank you, Lumi!  I am amazed at the effort you put in to your judging post, and I love hearing what each poem made you think/feel.  I think this is about the third poem I have shared on Chatterbox.  I don't write poetry often, but a lot of the poetry I write is very personal and rarely makes it from my mind to paper.  So this is probably why you haven't seen much of my poems.  Who knows, I may start posting my poems more in the future.

submitted by Peregrine
(September 1, 2021 - 9:54 am)
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