It’s a constant struggle trying to “buff up” your resume, with students searching high and low for attractive facets to add. One avenue juniors Jazy Childers and Maddie Hosek took utilized their creative side. 

   They were both published in the “JUST POETRY!!! the National Poetry Quarterly” with the National High School Poetry Contest sponsored by the Live Poets Society of New Jersey.

   Childers wrote about being a first-generation college student, facing unexplored avenues and being a guide for her younger brothers. Hosek’s poem expanded on the feeling of entering adulthood in her junior year. 

   “I’ve written about [being first-gen] before, but not as a poem,” Childers said. “I know that as the oldest child, I have that responsibility to lead the way for my brothers, so reflecting on that was my way of expressing those thoughts.”

   Varvel prepared them for this in their creative writing class, with an early emphasis on poetry. It also included information about how to submit work for competitions, anthologies, scholarships, and more. 

   They both plan to use these skills in higher education, though it might look different. Hosek plans to study geoscience while double majoring in physics or chemistry to chase her goal of being a research geophysicist. 

   “Writing is definitely something that has to be honed in on for that field,” Hosek said. “Not so much creative writing, but that’s more of a hobby. It’s fun to do: you can express your feelings in a way you can’t really talk about.”

   Childers hopes to attend the University of Texas at Austin and study both art and psychology to become an art therapist.

   “Art comes in all sorts of forms, so even writing can be a form of art therapy,” Childers said. “Submitting poems and these experiences gives me a step up [in admissions and other competitions.]”

   Both will continue submitting their works to publications, scholarships, and other competitions throughout higher education. 

   “Having work out there that you create by yourself is confidence boosting,” she said. “ I think being in multiple organizations shows it’s not just a luck thing, and I really enjoy writing poetry and showing it.”

   Below are their poems:

No Footsteps to Follow, No Footsteps to Leave by Jazy Childers

Dirt-scabbed skin

Tickled under chipped nails

Peeling stickers covering barbed scratches

I will grip the knob with whitened knuckles

Scraping wood and jammed corners

It’ll echo through the hall

Like a plea to stay

Air fills my lungs, crisp to the wind

I will sit in that hesitance

One foot out and two hearts in

While I dread the tugging of my pant leg

And squeaking of her pleas

Why do they always look at you like that?

It’s not your fault, 

I’ll cry out

You’re the first

And the last to leave

The End of the “Before” Things by Maddie Hosek

The clock ticks, as the memories fly past

Time flies, they say. It always catches up

To you, and you won’t even realize.

You will keep living and smiling

That smile that fills your heart with joy inside

Until time grows old and weary and you

See that the end is near. There is no stop-

-ping it. You embrace it, and you taste it. 

The doom of the days ahead loom lurking

In the gray haze above where we all must

Go eventually when the time arrives

You won’t scream or cry like they all say you

Will. You will breathe deeply and face the cloud

Full of ‘before’ things when life was easy