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Bernstein Family Foundation is proud to support the Alliance for Young Writers and Artists, which is endowed with the partnership of The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). The Alliance, PCAH, and Institute of Museum and Library Services have come together to create the National Student Poets Program, a distinction of the highest honor awarded annually to five lucky poets. These young visionaries instill a deep sense of inspiration and faith in the future of the craft. Hailing from across the U.S., they have been bestowed upon the responsibility to act as ambassadors of poetry in their respective regions. To get to know our most recent Student Poets, I asked them a few questions. To check out their award winning work, click on each of their profiles.
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Eileen Huang
Age 15; Holmdel, NJ
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Eileen Huang’s Poems
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David Xiang
Age 17; Little Rock, AR
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David Xiang’s Poems
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De’John Hardges
Age 16; Cleveland, OH
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De’John Hardge’s Poems
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Chasity Hale
Age 16; Miami Beach, FL
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Chasity Hale’s Poems
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Anna Lance
Age 17; Eagle River, AK
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Anna Lance’s Poems
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Eileen Huang, Age 15; Holmdel, NJ
Eileen Huang is a sophomore at High Technology High School in Lincroft, New Jersey. While studying abroad in Beijing for a year, Eileen became interested in the ancient Chinese poems of Li Bai and Du Fu. She loves to write narrative poems describing normal, conventional experiences using descriptive language. In addition to writing poetry, she is interested in both journalism and art. As a student in a STEM high school, she can often be found reading authors that range from Vonnegut to Plath or studying the phases of mitosis. Although she is still fairly new to poetry, Eileen believes that it is a powerful and liberating form of creative expression, and she strives to write a new poem every day.
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Confluence
Tang dynasty poems
are four lines
each,
breaks between cadences
each character a curve,
iron hook, slicing black
scissor slashes against
textbook paper. I am no
Li Bai, for instead of wine
I drink the laws of thermodynamics,
and I pass time under the home screen of
a Nokia rather than moonlight, the foot of my bed nothing more
than a scuffing of
crushed cockroaches. I do not need lullabies
when I can recite
stanzas in my sleep, their four beat,
jumping voices
buzzing like dragonflies in hollow ear canals.
They speak of rivers, looping islands,
yellow-brown mud sloshing behind
rocks in the shapes of warriors
who jumped across gorges
in pursuit of wild tigers.
I press knees against littered plastic bags
and feel them crunch like insects under bare feet,
I do not need to pretend that I am standing at the edge of a river,
one toe in the flowing mud,
arm resting against the sandbanks. And I do not
need blankets when I have the
lisping voices of Su Song
to sing me
to sleep.
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Piano
I could never play as well as my sister
her fingers darted amongst onyx and ivory
like fish slipping through coral, winding her way up each crescendo
whispering through scales with every pianissimo
hands poised before she even tapped out a melody. My fingers stumbled
out like drunken men from bars
pinky throwing the inebriated
first punch at my thumb,
perpetual pub fistfight.
Last night we went to her recital
and I listened with one ear as
a barrage of virtuosos
clunked on stage
black dress shoes and ribbons cascading down prodigy backs
pressing out etude upon etude
variations upon other variations
until Chopin interlaced with Czerny
and Rachmaninoff waltzed with Liszt. My father listened, too
with two ears and his spine
tingling at every B flat and falling grace note
humming to the tune of each shrill sonata
his gnarled hands playing along on a keyboard
only he could see.
I tried to teach myself the chords to a movie soundtrack, opening notes of a show tune
but my fingers would weaken at every black key
and Inspector Javert would falter on high notes, unraveling from hands,
sliding out from underneath wet,
sweating palms. I would never feel that
flat rush,
the pizzicato on taut strings. Perhaps,
for me,
shutting the mahogany lid
was not the worst
possible scenario.
My oblivious father is suddenly an instrumental connoisseur,
as he never fails to remind me.
That, he points to a Russian girl,
violin shaded by her slick, protruding bun, spine pulled as tight as a fishing wire,
is a good one,
from 1880 or so.
You can tell by the sound—
and the slender apparatus howls out a low, lone note
horsehair bristles vibrating against each dark string—
rich, he remarks, isn’t it?
Rich, indeed, I say,
an adjective that will never apply to us if we decide that a Steinway
would look nice on our living room
carpet.
The other day I realized
that you were the same things, except I
could play you,
but only
with a few unexpected staccatos
peppered about sheet music
smooth as the hood of a baby grand. But even throughout my frayed concerto,
your lid would snap on my hands like the recalcitrant
beaks of hungry birds.
My fingers played you for what you truly were
sans sheet, sans conductor
only stairs upon stairs of endless columbine
leading to the midnight ebony of your
covered keyboard.
(I can’t,
can never,
cannot,
play you.)
My father is resolute in his dream
of expanding his limited musical prowess. I see him now,
coattails flared above a leather bench
back and fingers arched like
Beethoven, Bach, and other gray-haired, high-foreheaded Austrians.
Lost in a ragtime piece,
perhaps Joplin or the tumbling notes
of Basie. I pass the maroon grand of my childhood,
sitting patiently on an
oriental rug in the foyer.
O’ black, hopeful beast
golden harped, thundering
forte-on-the-fourth-note angel—
what have I ever done,
to deserve your unconcern.
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What book has influenced you the most?
Probably any fantasy book I read in elementary school. I was a very voracious reader, so I would quickly devour almost any series. Reading all those adventure novels showed me the different journeys that a book can take you on, and the power that you wield when you’re writing in order to make those worlds. They inspired me to write stories with worlds of my own.
Favorite subject in school?
Definitely English! I’ve always loved analyzing literature and playing around with words.
What is your greatest strength?
Although this could be seen as a weakness sometimes, I believe that my greatest strength is probably being really, really invested in whatever my interests are. Whenever I start getting interested in a particular subject, I put a lot of effort into pursuing it. I started reading and writing at a pretty young age, and many times my parents would have to remind me to put my Percy Jackson book down at dinner. But I think pursuing that passion has really made me who I am today.
Favorite word?
Being a poet, I’ve always had a thing for onomatopoeias, so I like to use words like “crack” and “susurrant” in a poem. I realize it sounds a bit odd, but they just really add more detail and a sense of urgency in any writing. That being said, I love the English language, so almost any word is my favorite word!
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David Xiang, Age 17, Little Rock, AR
David Xiang is a senior at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. At school, he takes an AP-heavy schedule, starts for the varsity soccer team, and is the Senior Editor and Spoken Word Leader of the Memory Project, a club devoted to oral histories about tensions and prejudices. David first began writing and exploring poetry in his freshman year, but it soon changed from a hobby to a passion; he believes a poem is never completely finished. At home, when David is not jotting down phrases and lines in his hoarded notebooks, he plays piano, which to him is just writing in his second favorite language.
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Duet
They sit, arranged honeycomb style,
six to a side, every day at five sharp, on humid firefly-flecked Fridays.
The silence is palatable, the voices mute enough to discern
Orpheus’s lute echoing from the stalactites below.
She sits, center stage, nose blinded and ears neglected; her hands
tremble like the nervous flutter of a hummingbird, her fingers
twitch down carved ebony, 88 paths of promise and perspiration.
She listens, she smiles, as penguins do after a long swim.
Mitosis passed last year, she reminds herself.
He sits, still as a statue, chained to those wooden knobs and
polished metal, hangdog in posture but proud in action.
His mind darts from blackened circle to circle, fingers fly, the piano stays
untouched, unused.
He is like a phantom, they say,
he is like a ghost, they say, with owl eyes.
What would you like to eat? a nurse asks, smile frozen by a basilisk’s glare, inwardly
giggling as
four years of a million Lincolns and salt-stained bubbles are mixing amnesia and
meatballs in a nearby saucepan.
Nothing, she replies, the music is all I need, Mahler or
metamorphosis will be today’s main entrée. She notices that
the pianist is crouching quietly in the corner;
the orbiting pistons cranking like the clarion of an extinct clock;
a snowy grin emerges from hibernation.
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A Tale of Four Statues: Ambition, Personality, Opportunity, and Preparation
We looked down and there you were
Nine of you
Erected with love,
Carved with tolerance,
Chiseled with diligence,
Carefully sculpted hair,
With little flecks of fear in your eyes.
Like the last glimmer of paint on a painter’s palate,
Sprinkled glass from prototypes destroyed,
As hard as clay but tender as sand.
Nine shades of brown we had never witnessed.
We looked down and there you were,
In a sea of soldiers and hate,
A typhoon of threats and abuse,
Fulminating with bricks thrown and shins kicked,
You cracked, you bent, you stumbled,
But statues never break.
We were molded out of marble,
You were molded in melanin,
You were made different,
Your sculptor must have told you that.
As statues, we never learned the colors of the rainbow,
Or how a black student grows a reservoir of patience amid a flood of hate,
Everyone was frozen in adherence to society’s tempo—
All except nine
Rebels in disguise.
Miniature maestros.
The instrument of integration being played in a symphony of quiet nonviolence,
All except nine broke the stone cold monotony.
Black clouds of white mobs like battleships covered us
Goodbye Personality
Goodbye Ambition
Goodbye Opportunity
Hello Preparation,
but nothing could have prepared us.
Burning hearts with frozen souls,
Wet marble glistening with apprehension,
Our skin splintering with fear.
We saw what would happen,
But we could not speak.
We saw what would happen,
But we did not speak.
Carved by Father Time, the nine displayed a different creator
Hello Preparation.
The nine stood trembling,
Adversity threatened to crack their carefully sculpted frames,
Surrounded by safety in the form of death,
Too young to enlist in any branch of the military,
But already veterans on the battlefield of injustice.
We saw what would happen,
But we could not speak.
We saw what would happen,
But we did not speak.
For history must be allowed to sculpt its own path,
For history must be allowed to make its own statues,
Nine more emerged in 1957,
And they will be chiseled in the memory of the world, forever.
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Favorite Poet?
Pablo Neruda.
Last book you read?
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
Aspirations in life?
I want to write all that I can write, learn all that I can learn, and live all that I can live.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
I’ve actually thought long and hard about this question before, and the first place that popped into my mind was a quiet island or secluded area away from all pollution so I could actually see the night sky as humans did hundreds or even thousands of years ago. We share our home with so many natural wonders and beings that are dwindling every day, and I just want to see something that is raw nature, something that can never be replicated with human hands, no matter how ingenious or creative we are. To be able to look up at night’s canvas and see it splattered with stars- that’s a hard thing to come by in modern times, and something I’ve always dreamed of seeing.
Favorite word?
Humanity. It means so much, yet also so little.
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De’John Hardges, Age 16, Cleveland, OH
De’John Hardges is a junior at Cleveland School of the Arts, majoring in literary Arts with an emphasis on poetry. Since De’John took his first poetry class in the fifth grade, he has gained more conviction that his is the path of a poet and performance artist. He has been nurtured by an important group of literary and performance artists, including his poetry teacher and mentor, Daniel Gray-Kontar; his short fiction instructor, Robert Allen Washington; and his performance instructors, Kisha Nicole Foster and Raymond McNiece. When he isn’t studying for classes or performing, he works as a community organizer for the New Abolitionists Association.
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Mr. Superior
I saw dis drunk
On deh corner of 1 0 5
Wearen’ deh same thang
Dem red and white Jordan’s
Wit da black check on deh side
But, I sweah he told me
Dat he stood in line deh first time
Wen dey first came out
Den tell me why he rocken’ deh Dickies
real baggy
A black ROC-A-
WEARing it proud
Dat was his armor
Made him bulletproof
Wit all da rips and holes
Even wit his fitted cap
You could definitely tell dis character
from a caricature
Breath reeking hottah than the devil
peeing whiskey
Constantly staren’ n’ preachen’
On that same corner
Smellin’ of the same thang
People say the same thang
Story changed but same thang every day
He claims he’s seen it all
But his eyes, solid gray
Everybody say he’s lost it but, I think he
hella sane
I listen
Facts is all I hear
A primary source, sound like he was
right there
Everything becomes vivid
Deh stench of each picture
Speak descriptions only he could hear
Now he pass em’ on to who eva he catch
listenen’
One time
One time
He told me bout a conversation
He had wit dat house on the corner
Like 3 different colors
Dey had a discussion
Dey criticized bein’ loyal
To compromises
Becuz’ nuhen harder den self-reliance
Out here on these mean streets
Dats how he said it
He had a sense of humor but that’s not why
I didn’t forget him
He was actually wise
So I respect im
Aim a few dollas his way
Jus to get em rejected
He would tell me
Dah superior sign told him not to accept it
He claimed my ear was enough
So I continued to lend it
As he told me where he found
That shell of a building
It was dah late ’80s
He said
A few cops and a gang
Were bumpen heads
A couple dozen shots
Left everybody dead
It was horrible
Building jus had to be condemned
But it still caused trouble
You know suicides
Or car accidents
Boom!!! Into the brick entrance
The city got sick of it
So they tried to tear it down
But it kept resisten’ em
Left a shell there
And a few skeletons
Talked to em all
Before he cleaned up
Den settled in
Claimed it
After dey mangled it
Dah cities trash
Became his settlement
Livin life
Is wat he claim he does
Every day on dat corner
Gettin extremely drunk
But wen i ask, his response Is
I’m jus a lil buzzed
I don’t think he crazy
That’s jus sumn u labeled im
Ears listenen
To broken records
Broke ears
from passing that paper
I’m done hearin’ yo
Aye—Look at this
A no-named pic in the obit
Says he had no family or a place to stay
No one knew his identity
He nevah wore a mask
Said he was a drunk
That’s jus how y’all pictured im
But really he was superior
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Eternal Strength
This day
A minute in her millions of years to
come
After stepping through heaven’s gates
intending to live on
Through our hearts as a large piece of
our spirit
She thanks us for deeds we haven’t
done yet
Anticipating our better years and
great-great-grandkids
Raised better or at least as well as we
were
For their sake
Not for the things I speak as she
anticipates
But for the upbringing of her part of
our race
Wasn’t her mind incredible
Foreseeing untold scenes
Pictures of hands and fingers tangled
into a braid of perfected struggle
The characters she helped create
Consume full sheets of paper
I said “the characters she helped
create consume full sheets of paper”
To be ready today, tomorrow,
tomorrow’s tomorrow, then and after
Now and later if not forever
Amen.
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What motivates you?
I’m often motivated by my contemporaries and their achievements. Whenever I hear a poem a friend wrote, whether it’s good or bad, I find something positive or intriguing to take from it and use as good energy to create something of my own. I also love helping and sharing work with my contemporaries.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I like to record Hip Hop music just for fun, but I am thinking of beginning a more serious project, a poetry album titled “Depth”. It’s in the thought stage, but can and more than likely will be done.
Favorite book?
I honestly don’t have a favorite book because I read so much and there are so many books that haven’t been written yet, but if I was to claim a book as my favorite, I think it would be the book I’m writing now because of how much I can relate to it.
Achievement you are most proud of?
I am most proud of becoming a National Student Poet because it’s a big step forward in a future I already wanted for myself before being appointed this role. Plus I met FLOTUS, come on, it doesn’t get any bigger than that.
Favorite word?
My favorite word is Poetry and not because it’s what I write or because I was born in National Poetry Month (April), but because of the effect poetry has had on my life. Poetry opened doors for me that I couldn’t open on my own.
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Chasity Hale, Age 16, Miami Beach, FL
Chasity Hale is a junior and creative writing major at Miami Arts Charter School. She was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, but currently lives in Miami Beach, Florida. A Scholastic Art & Writing Awards gold medalist, Chasity has also received two Gold Keys and six Silver Keys. She won first place in the Sarah Mook poetry contest and has been published by Creative Communications, Susquehanna university, and the “Young American Poetry digest.” Poetry is the lens through which she views the world, not to escape it, but to delve into it more deeply. In her free time, she likes to practice dance and visual arts.
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About a Boy
Yesterday faded
But tomorrow’s in BOLDFACE.
—Naomi Shihab Nye
Some years ago, in the earlier days
of loose teeth and barefooted sprints,
I sat on the terrace of a large Nebraskan home,
leaning up against a stiff Corinthian pillar.
I watched Robert Harris from where I was settled.
His face was a shadow and his voice was thunder.
Among the other children in the neighborhood,
he was a salvager, a suspender cable
for an otherwise unsteady bridge.
His words were scriptures
that had yet to be recorded
and he used to tell us that he was trying to
connect with an unhurried God.
I had always wondered who would
keep the very essence of youth on hold?
I now know that it was because
he was like a walleye to a fisherman in the Midwest.
A materialized blessing
and a voicemail from up above saying,
“. . . leave a message at the dial tone.”
That rarest of catches.
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What If?
“What if the raindrops get so big,
they swallow the sky?” she asks.
Could we use the papers
in the glove compartment
to start a fire and illuminate
the liquidated skies?
We’ll use every rusted coin
to purchase blessings,
and buy plane tickets to destiny,
where we will find a milk carton child
and wish her home to voices
tainted with “we’ll find her” and
“it gets worse before it gets better.”
We’ll get our names in the newspaper.
What if we’re happiest when we are sleeping?
I’ll fold your skin like origami
until you are a swan or a flower
and I will place you in my pocket
so that you can nestle in the warmth
like a baby bird.
My daughter tries to climb her way to heaven
by shimmying up stalk-like tree trunks.
We live in a godless place, but treat it
as if there is plenty of god left in you.
I tell her to roll the windows down.
To love not the smell of rain,
but the smell of it leaving.
“What if the clouds taste like peppermint patties
on the train that travels over the ocean?”
“What if it is heading to nowhere in particular?”
“What if that is where we want to go?”
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What book has influenced you most?
This is a really difficult question because I love a lot of books, but ultimately, I’d have to choose Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wayne Jones. I also love the film adaptation done by Studio Ghibli. Both the novel and the film are just so dreamy and inventive which is everything that I aspire to do in my own writing.
Who is your hero?
I have so many heroes! There are a lot of writers and artists and just people I’ve encountered in my personal life that are so admirable, but if I had to choose just one, I’d choose my mother. She’s so selfless and always pushes me to be my best.
Favorite season and why?
My favorite season is spring because I love the warmth and color palette. Also, ever since I was younger, I always used to associate the things that I love— fairies and unicorns and of course, flowers, with the season.
Favorite word?
My favorite word would probably have to be hazy. It’s a great adjective to describe dreams and feelings!
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Anna Lance, Age 17, Eagle River, AK
Anna Lance is a senior attending West High School in Anchorage, Alaska. She has been writing poetry for as long as she can remember; her parents love to tell the story of her “first poem,” which she wrote in scribbled hieroglyphs on construction paper at age three, and then translated aloud for her mom. Today, her interests are heavily arts-focused and include literature, film, musical theater, photography, camping, and figuring out what color she’s going to dye her hair next. Her work is largely personal in nature. Self-discovery and the energy of life are frequently its key players, as are change and confusion and—most important—hope. She would like to complete a script or screenplay someday, but at the moment her main goal is to survive her senior year relatively undamaged.
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class of 2016
About half of us are going to pursue a career
in engineering. There are stringent requirements even now,
rising crag-faced as glaciers from the sea—signs that some destination
stands yet between us and jarring solitude and that
the cold steam obscures, but doesn’t obliterate, direction.
One of our friends is taking three science classes her senior year,
two advanced, one at the community college. She requests the double enrollment
the way she would extra pickles at Subway. She does not stop
to ask herself whether the eyes of students years more experienced
will crinkle her spine into the “S” that confesses insecurity—
a consonant she fought ferally to straighten in middle school.
Another surprises us when we look and she has
the rimmed, glassy eyes of something taxidermied, snot dripping.
She needs a full AP schedule but doesn’t want to drop orchestra,
is clinging to the smell of rosin and the perforated walls of practice rooms
so hard it’s making her bleed, somewhere. Our counselor assures her
it can be done—it’ll work out—art classes can be taken and excused away
in recommendation letters. She will say:
The student wished to fulfill the final year of a lifelong passion.
She will say: Family troubles. They dented her record
like bullets punching through rusting cars in blueberry fields.
(She came to my office twice a week and ate lollipops from the jar while crying.)
She will say: Well-rounded. She will say: A comeback.
A fine recovery. She will cover the fissures with her manicured hands
and amicably direct attention to the best functionality, the highest gloss.
She will not be honest—she’s done this before.
It feels like stepping center stage to face the empty auditorium
and all the lights crowning the balcony. It feels like you can’t forget fast enough.
Even as the sounds are being spoken and you’re relaying them to the audience,
you’re forgetting them as fast as you can, dropping your cues all over the place.
Someone expects you to deflate and someone else expects you to swell
until you fill the space with a timpani thunderstorm and you must do both
or they will be very disappointed. We skim elbows in the hallways
and break our confidentiality vows two minutes after obtaining the chance
to consummate them. “The grammar section—was it which or whom?
Isn’t ‘whom’ for people? Do you use it for animals? Can you consider a butterfly
a person?” Can you indeed. Eight hundred heartbeat-shaped flutters
scribbling pathways above the cafeteria: incandescent suntrails, gone if you breathe.
The brevity of luminescence. Wings in cheeks, wings in ears, and somehow
flight achieved
on scraps of tissue, damp from development. We make the laws of physics
look the other way.
It feels like waking up. Arch, yawn—and, yes, here we have the blip of peace
before everything stings. It feels like the tired buried aches above your right knee
although you’re pretty certain you’ve flourished as far as circumstances will allow.
It feels like clouds spun from sugar, rain holding its breath, incipient luminism—
the web of light that sticks to the sky and dumps its belly of illumination
over mountain and lake. (We slept in violent languor, and we now emerge blinking.)
We must record this moment, and this one, and this one. This year is molting
and soon we won’t remember how we wore it anymore. We do not fit into old T-shirts,
old proverbs, old circles. We do not fit and soon nothing will contain us—
a truth the flavor of unripe strawberries, a tonguepincher—soon we will devour
the Earth and then the sun and then there will be nothing left. It’s terrifying.
They tell us to fly and we do it without thinking,
without stopping to wonder if we have another choice.
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unfiltered
i should be happy to be here, they tell me. after all,
we’ve got the cleanest and best-tasting water in
the country, thanks to the glaciers
that sacrifice themselves down mountainsides while we sleep
until they fit into bottles that take 450 years to decompose. (i could never stand
city water, they say, as if they’ve ever had the chance.)
i should be happy to interlock with the landscape,
to have fingers that curl into the scar-knots of bark
like they were cut from the same clay—close my eyes,
put on the hat my great-aunt knit me for christmas, and become indistinguishable
from purity (not invisible but a part of something larger), someone’s snowflake
or wishing star or whatever, whatever, whatever.
i tasted the tap somewhere down in dallas
and it was like kissing sidewalk. i knew there were no glaciers
in its history, no névé becoming firn becoming ice becoming
frigid runoff boiling around my bare calves becoming
the flood that explored the counter around the sink or the sweat that bled
from the pit of my chin, but i
was happy. (you are no one’s snowflake and no one’s wishing star—
you are gritty with saturation and marinated in things forgotten, far more
than one in a million, and they tell me as much as 73% of your body’s
collective cell structure is puddles, swimming pools, and sewage slurry
but that’s okay. they’re just jealous.)
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Last book you read?
The last book I read was Room by Emma Donoghue, which I read after watching the film adaptation that came out last year. It was incredible, especially for a novel written from a very young child’s point of view!
Literary hero?
Marius Pontmercy from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables; we’re very alike in a lot of ways, and the fact that he manages to find happiness despite what he lives through over the course of the novel is very inspiring to me.
Aspirations in life?
I’m still figuring out exactly what I want to do with my life, but I know I want to use my writing to help others. I’m also interested in film and theatre and would love to work with them in the future.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
I’d love to visit Venice, Italy. One of my favorite books as a child, The Thief Lord, was set there, and I’m intrigued by the history and beauty of the place.
What is your favorite word?
Bright.
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The Bernstein Family Foundation would like to thank the National Student Poets Program. The bios for each of the award winners come directly from the National Student Poets Program booklet.
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