ACE Poetry Contest Winning Poets from Oakland International High School Describe Beauty, Protection and Dreams

By Samosa, ACE Poetry Contest Mascot, Oakland International High School

The thing about poems
Is they can take time
To tell a story
With nary a rhyme.

So here are our winners
From Oakland so cool
Rhyming don’t count
Not from this school.

It’s telling our stories
The highs and the lows
Putting stories in poems
Just makes us grow.

Here are the winners from Oakland International High School. They’re purrfect.

First Place Prize:

Persecution People
By Kalkidan Woldetsadik

I left my home country
To be persecution person
To live in dark round
Having dark stress
My happiness left me
My sad life coming up
Who I’m gonna tell what I will to tell
Nobody didn’t listen to me to I be selfene
Living myself nobody not sharing me
Listen God mine pray
He listen my pray that’s all gone
A new day comes to my life
My sad life being away my happiness comes closely
When I entered to my country
I breathe again when I get freedom
My dream being open
Thank you Jesus to make my dream true

See Kalkidan recite her poem here:

IMG_7236

Second Place Prize:

To Kill but to Protect
By Adriana Mejia

Your words make me wonder
If I am paying the prize
The sensation that what you are saying
Will later be said to me
Don’t worry, dear Father
Your words in my blood will disappear
I will carry them with sorrow
Of someone that my community wants to destroy
Now, I stand away from you
If those words I have to hear
I prefer to hear from someone else
But not you
Maybe now you won’t understand
But one day you might see
How your words will be tattooed on me
How I will be your armor
When karma decides the target
Is only you
You won’t realize now
I might never let you do so
But whenever I get to cry for the shame
Inside of me
Your words will be remembered
Such a stone, such sword
Controlled with the words that my people
Get day by day
Now, Father I stand close to them
Throw the stone near them
But pointing at this heart
That you made
Because if you kill me at this moment
The memory will always unbroken
Kill me to bring strength
Kill me, but not them.

Third Place Prize:

What is Beauty
By Akira Furaha

Beauty is retiring with no job, like every 12th grader who are always tired. Beauty is like the weird color wall just like Momo’s bed she described nervously. Beauty is like red buckets on heads like 11th graders with so much energy. Beauty is corny and cheesy just like this poem. Beauty is like the smell of lemonverbina which I don’t know how to spell. Beauty is like Mr. Paul’s beard soft, long, and old like Mr. Daniel who claims 2 be 2 old. Beauty is subjective no one knows how to describe it perfectly, but people know what it is. Beauty is like 何も or 没 nada, niente, khong congi and nothing in other languages. But what I know is that Beauty is beautiful.