Litfest: Montclair teens perform at poetry slam

Poet, puppeteer and evaluate Roger Sedarat. COURTESY TONY TURNER

Montclair Literary Festival held a expressed word competition (poetry thrash) during the fete in March for Montclair students. The Montclair poetry slam Drew 32 performers from the town's three middle schools, and this year for the first time, from Montclair High Train. In addition, five adult poets performed and judged the poetry slam dance. Poet Vincent Toro was the overlord of ceremonies. According to Montclair Literary Festival, the puzzle out at the poetry flap down "fey on everything from schooltime shootings to sexual assault, divorce, loneliness, beauty, segregation and social difference.

"This year's poetry slam was staggeringly spirited and impressively delivered by every young poet who took the stage," wrote Glaze Cooper in a unfreeze. Cooper organizes the Montclair Poetry Slam and runs Succeed2gether's tutoring program.

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Say: MONTCLAIR LITERARY Fete; READINGS, PANELS AND WORKSHOPS (Ohio, MY)

Translate: MONTCLAIR LOCAL TOWN Feather; INSIDE THE SUCCEED2GETHER TUTORING PROGRAM

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This yr's award-winners of the poetry gib included Ariana Padilla, a 10th-grader at Montclair High (1st rank), Emma Uva, an eighth-grader at Buzz Aldrin Gymnasium (2nd place), Jim Sellars, an eighth-grader at Glenfield Middle School (3rd place) and Nico Cooperman, a 6th-grader at Glenfield (second best).

Want to be published? We're looking or local writing in our new series, "Montclair Writes."  We'd prefer it to be curated freshman: a written material magazine, class, writer's group. Send to culture@montclairlocal.news

Emma Uva performs her work on the Literary Festival. COURTESY TONY TURNER

 "A Leaning Of What To Know Before Being My Friend" by Emma Uva

1. My sprightliness can be equated to MySpace. Once dearly loved, now made amusing of for being emo.
2. If you father't think Angel Dumott Schunard from "Rent" deserved better, I don't think you should live talking to me.
3. I'm 5'2" and all my friends are taller than 5'6", so I'm looking for some other short friends and so that I'm not the only one victimized as an armrest.
4. I only communicate in incomprehensible screeching and quotes from "The Office."
5. I've by chance begun using the word "YOLO" unironically now and then and I think that is why my friends parting me.
6. I've had friends that changed equivalent seasons, came and went like leaves passing in a air, and I seemed to become like a tree that blocks the wind.
7. Some days I palpate the like I won freshman place in a battle of Marathon, others I feel like the track that was run on.
8. I am a daisy. Merely non one that stands its ground, transparent up pushing itself into the sky, soft Edward D. White petals trying to intermix with the clouds. No, I am the daisy the lovesick girl plucks from its roots to flake off its petals one past unrivaled. "He loves me, atomic number 2 loves me not."
9. I always make a point she's left on he loves ME not.
10. My life is like a ceaseless intermediate place. I think I'll win but I'm just not good. There's always soul who will push past and get what I worked so hard for, patc my achievements go without placard.
11. Earlier when I said each my friends, I basically meant all two of them. Everyone I love so dearly leaves me.
12. Why does everyone I love so dearly leave me?
13. Preceptor't leave Maine.
14. Don't leave me.
15. Don't leave me.
16. Don River't exit me.
17. I am weak. I am a seashell humiliated by the harshness of the waves lapping against the tide. I am a precariously located vase teetering off the edge of an conclusion table, threatening to crash to the floor, only no ace moves it away because they never liked that vase anyway.
18. My friendships were like injured kites I dependable then hard to navigate because they were so pretty. Because they were colorful, and looked nothing like the other kites the children flew in the commons.
19. Please don't live another broken kite.
20. This may be all in my head. This may all glucinium extraordinary sick unfinished painting I try so petrified to vacate, but my mind keeps dipping my brush into new colors, mixing new shades, changing the normal as it goes. My mind may have control of the brush, just I always feel myself spin it in my fingers, gear up to meticulously paint on color after color, united brush stroke after the other. Maybe my judgment is tricking Maine into holding the brush.
21. Perchance the brush isn't there. Maybe the painting was never started, kites never broken, vase never pushed to the edge, seashell never made IT to the tides. Maybe I'm just frightened. Afraid that all the things that create Maine prosperous will evaporate and sail with the wind to a new Utopia of theirs.
22. I'm probably sporting scared.
23. If I haven't scared you away yet, maybe you can be my new friend. One World Health Organization won't be some other broken kite.

Jim Sellars performs the verse form that took third place. COURTESY TONY TURNER

"Erasing Differences" by Jim Sellars

I was the hot kid in school
And I had nonheritable of one rule out
That in order to blend in
You had to be cool
But one day during math socio-economic class
Something got Pine Tree State perplexed
I had successful a small error
Perhaps a fondle of bad luck
There was this kid next to me
I did non have it off him well
Merely I meant no harm when I said
"Can I birth a rubber?"
He turned to me with a risible smirk
And a look that was most awry
I wondered what his problem was
As he got this glint in his eye
He started to laugh, tears in his eyes
He was really quite a amused
I thought his answer was very rude
And I sat there rather mazed
Through and through snorts of laughter, he had the nerve to ask
"Can I ask you to clarify?"
So again I said, louder
"CAN I HAVE A RUBBER?"
These antics made the instructor gaze
She saw we had lost attention
She severely asked what was going on
Once again I spoke, "Can I have a golosh?"
A look after of realization dawned on her face
"Aha," she said with a grin
She had heard of this natural event someplace before
"I know what's issue forth over him!"
She scrambled around in her desk awhile
And then pulled out a small pink disk
She held it graduate over her head
And aforesaid, "Do you signify this?"
"Yes" I exclaimed "I am not going crazy"
"A person WHO understands me"
"Do you eff what rubber means in America?"
Said the teacher rather comically
"No", I replied, bewildered and lost
Then again it was clear what she meant
To Aussies, a rubber is an eraser
But here it is something quite different
And then I bust the rule on how to blend in
Lucky kids weren't active to doom
And now I am known as the new Aussie boy
Who asked his teacher for a condom

Nico Cooperman performs her study. COURTESY TONY TURNER

"Spirit's Mountain" by Nico Cooperman

I've been going to school for over 8 age
By the way, that's most of my life
I'm only 11 – waiting to turn 12
And I already fear for my sanity
I'm seen as cagey – there are high expectations
The great unwashe set them earlier me, thinking I toilet pass them easily
They believe their expectations are like stepping stones
To me, they are like mountains
I struggle to climb, hands raw and bloody
My lungs rasp for breath, my oxygen scarce
It's frigid and freezing, and I have no coat
Sometimes I fall; Nobody helps Pine Tree State
Each step is a struggle I essential overcome
And when I reach the summit, I realize the mountain I climbed
Was the stepping stone
To the adjacent mountain
This stacks is large, is rougher, is steeper
And even though I induce not even begun to climb this one
I know for certain that when I reach the top
There will be yet another mountain for me to face
And I may not wax victorious
If I do not make it, I bequeath comprise looked upon in attaint
A dishonor, a letdown, a stain onto their name
Will I be overlooked as if I never even tried?
Volition my name have disappeared, my achievements soft aside?
I don't feel I can risk that, I'd rather ride out and campaign
I'll struggle up the mountains, mounting up through daylight and night
But if I anticipate the right, thither's a nice, peaceful pool
I look to the left, there's a lovely green meadow
If I dare to look down, there's an easier path
And if I look straight up, there's a lustrous lucent rainbow
But the innocent pool is covered in ice
The grass in the meadow is hiding their thorns
The "easier path" is ready-made of sharp rocks
And the beautiful rainbow will damage your eyes
So if you look at these, are the mountains so bad?
If you can see them for what they are?
And if you strive the top side, is information technology not more rewarding
To finally see the stars?

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