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Danielle Scott was a beloved Teen Advisory Board member whom we lost to cancer in 2006 at the age of 14. Every October the library and TeenXTreme sponsor a poetry writing contest to honor Danielle and her love of writing.
This year, to correspond with our Teen Read Week visit from Rick Yancey (author of the Monstrumologist series) and in keeping with the 2012 TRW theme “It Came From the Library”, poems entered should have a horror-related theme: monsters, the supernatural, the gothic and so on.
Contest rules: Entries may be submitted online *HERE* or on standard 8.5" x 11" paper (not to exceed two pages) to any public library by Oct. 31. When submitting online, please select the writing type “Poem” and be sure to include your phone number. Hard copies must be typed. Please include your name, telephone number, grade and school on your entry. Entries are not returnable.
One winner is chosen and awarded a plaque and a monetary prize. Eligibility: All entrants must be in grades 7-12 and either live in or attend school in Mahoning County.
The Shadow
Outside your window, under your bed,
Down in the cellar behind your closet door,
minds jam-packed with wonder
what lurks in these deep shadows?
A demonic force ready to strike
and all to shield you is a sheet of cotton.
Making sure you have both feet tucked under the cover,
hoping the fiend won’t snatch our frozen toes
and yank you under the mattress.
Every creek and every crack makes you sit up and turn.
Checking to see who is there,
a faceless woman who sits paralyzed.
Your heart skips a beat,
until you realize it is only your shadow.
Now a closet is just a closet,
and a cellar a cellar.
Not a home to a creature of the nameless.
Every creek and crack is now just the loud racket of the furnace.
The shadows sit there,
unable to startle the ones they used to,
And my pondering about what lies within them lessens.
Though still at night when I lay down to sleep,
I can still see the faceless woman from my past,
Watching me.
The Collection
bare
bulletin board
half way filled with
awards,
pins,
pictures
bare
bulletin board
memories
gradually fade
as wrinkles spring to the skin and technology advances
the echoes confusingly screech, "Hello...hello...hello?"
as the pins create eyes admiring
yesterday,
today,
tomorrow
bare
bulletin board
memories
disintegrate
as wrinkles become more vivid and technology expands
the echoes are now desperate for attention
as the pins grow tired of looking out
they now only focus on
today
empty
bulletin board
passed up by the thought of
left, right, left...
forgetting about Miss Mary Mac
standing back facing reality
I look at the memories that built up
but I realize it's only a
bare
bulletin board
2011 Danielle Scott Memorial Poetry Contest winner Amelia Manenti, Canfield Village Middle School