For several years, the Northeast branch has offered a Poetry Contest during April for National Poetry Month. 288 kids, teens and adults participated this year and the Awards Ceremony was held on Tuesday, May 19. The youngest poet was four years old and the oldest was 84 – it’s quite a multigenerational program! Please visit your neighborhood branch or the Central Library to browse the poetry collection. Friendly librarians are ready to help you find what you may be interested in.
Copies of all contest poems submitted are bound and available for reading at the Northeast branch – ask for them at the Information Desk. The following poem received first place recognition in the adults category at the Awards Ceremony.
A City Named Dis — the Lower Hell
by Mary Butler
How can I call it
Hell when I was so
Relieved to get there?
In fact, I refused
To set foot outside
The front door for
Three months. I
Opted for our own
Dangers. Gerry
Stood just inside
His doorless room
And roared at
Passersby. Jose,
I knew, had thrown
An easy chair down
The ward’s shotgun
Hall. But Andy
Was surely in the
Lowest Hell. He screamed
Day and night for three
Months and broke
An attendant’s arm.
I guess we each arrived
In our own Dis.
Barbara, a modest
Catholic girl, stripped
and danced around
Her room. I cut myself
With chips of glass.
Tom punched out
One of the so-called
Windows, small
Rectangles of heavy
Glass held in place
By what we sarcastically
Didn’t call bars.
There were some features
of public Lower
Hells: hundreds of
Tiny roaches lived
On the food cart;
Fish cakes on Fridays
Too salty to choke down;
Mops soaked in
Black, foul water
With which we
Anointed the floors.
Being crazy was
A full-time job,
Something worth
Engaging with, a
Response to the Sirens
Of the higher world’s
Foolish business.
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