Last night was our Teen Poetry Contest Reception and as always, it was a wonderful event! It's a such to see and hear our teen poets read their poems. We also had some great remarks by local poet Gayle Heney and Andover Poet Laureate Linda Flaherty Haltmaier. You can listen to a recording of the reception or to individual poems that were recited by clicking their titles below.

Here are the results of the contest:

High School Category

• First Place: Zoe Maver, “Construction Zone”
• Second Place: Vinny Schmidt, “The Real Me”
• Third Place: Nina McKone, “ She is in us All”
• Teens' Choice Award: Elissa Lonie, "Body Image"
• Poet Laureate's Award: David Frykenberg, "Footprints in the Snow"

High School Honorable Mentions

• Joanna Archambault, “Lost and Found”
• Adi Briskin, “Two truths and a Lie”
• Noah Coyle, “The City Rush”
• David Frykenberg, “Footprints in the Snow”
• Charlotte Guterman, “The dinosaurs’ prayer”
• Charlotte Guterman, “sister memories”
• Charlotte Guterman, “why my mother thinks hebrew is sexy”
• Olivia Hauser, “All of Me”
• Emily Huang, “The Mysterious Man’s Picture Book”
• Mia Imparato, “The Phantom Watchman, or The Ghost of Prim Point”
• Serena Li, “Sunlit Dream”
• Elissa Lonie, “A Sense of Safety”
• Zoe Maver, “Empathy: The Unspoken Chaos”
• Nina McKone, “Found Poem: Soldier’s Memory”
• Jayden Pena, “Expression”
• Jayden Pena, “Halo”
• Jayden Pena, “m&m”
• Vinny Schmidt, “A Ghetto Tale”
• Sheila Tejada, “Mask On”
• Sheila Tejada,” A Letter To My First Love”

Middle School Category

• First Place: Claire Cahill, “Dad”
• Second Place: Claire Cahill, “Fireplace”
• Third Place: Larry Liu, “A light in the darkness”
• Teens' Choice Award: Rishika Agarwal, "A Mirror"
• Poet Laureate's Award: Claire Cahill, "Dad"

Middle School Honorable Mentions

• Rishika Agarwal, “Who Are You?”
• Shambhavi Jayakumar, “Math Rules from Every Direction”
• Evelyn Lewis, “She is Jealous, In Love, Dissolving and Holding Onto The Clouds and Her Pearls”
• Saisha Prabhakar, “Blood”
• Isabel Tu, “Invisible Stories”
• Abhay Yajurvedi, “My life is a Flowing River”
• Abhay Yajurvedi, “A Tongue is a Blade”
• Alexandra Zetea, “Cosmic Dust”
• Alexandra Zetea, “Oceanic”
• Scarlett, “The Closet”

To read all of the honorable mentions and award winning poems, download a copy here. Winning poems from last year's Teen Poetry Contest can be found here.

Congratulations to all of our amazing poets!