Mother Earth, if you don’t mind, will you rock my kids to sleep too?
can they get rattles of pure mahogany and seeds of any sweetness? society is such a terrible family tree.”
The array of meaningful phrases created by junior Katelyn Omer in her poem, “wise beyond your tears”, demonstrates the personification of Mother Nature, while connecting the similarity between her own mother and the piece.
Both Omer and junior Liliana Stromgren recently earned accolades from the UNO Writer’s Workshop, a high school creative writing contest. The top three winners had the opportunity to read their poetry alongside a critically acclaimed poet, Maria Zoccola, author of “Helen of Troy,” on Mar. 25th.
Stromgren, winning third, aimed to incorporate real scenes from her life into her piece, highlighting the subtle forms of absence she experiences in her everyday life.
“My piece is called ‘Invisible’ and when I was writing it, a lot was going on for me family-wise. Since I have a lot of siblings, it’s really easy for me to feel invisible. I was dealing with an illness in my family, as well as my parents not always being home because they’re at work,” Stromgren said.
Both writers adopted unique elements when forming their craft. Omer, second-place winner of the contest, uses unconventional capitalization and italicization throughout the three-page-long poem.
“I use only a little intentional capitalization to emphasize the personification of Mother Nature, and to highlight the parallels between my mother and Mother Nature, as also shown by the repeating stanzas. Only lines about ‘them’ or said by ‘them’ are capitalized for clarity and to add more meaning,” Omer said.
In this literary form, words like Mom, Mother Nature, She, and Her tend to be capitalized. The poets have plenty of experience in the writing field and feel that it’s a way to connect people together without barriers.
“Since my life can be so stressful, as everyone’s is, I was kind of done with normal journaling since I tend to spiral with it compared to when I produce poetry. It’s one of those things that I tend to fall into a rhythm with that soothes me,” Stromgren said.
Both writers’ inspiration to produce impactful poetry started from a young age; English teacher Whitney Hansen was their main source of inspiration when applying to the contest.
“I chose to sponsor Slam Poetry Club because I have been writing poetry all my life. Poetry is such an incredible way for students to express themselves, and I wanted to be part of that. I originally found out about the UNO writers workshop when I was in college myself. I took multiple poetry and fiction classes through UNO when I was in college,” Hansen said.
The students get inspiration from other poets at Millard North, too, especially through the Slam Poetry Club. Connecting with one another through shared storytelling lets them hear each other’s individual styles as well as their past experiences.
The poets looked forward to the workshop experience and hoped to gain a better understanding of new poetry techniques and what writing is like at a college level.
“I think it would be really cool to see how UNO presents the workshop, what they present to their writing students, and what the college demographic is like. It’ll be really great to have the opportunity to work on performing it and being in those spaces that do the poem justice,” Omer said.
Their creativity and mindfulness taken throughout the process of constructing these impactful pieces of poetry serve as a reminder of their ability to inspire others and give the world a meaningful voice.