Thank you to all of our local poets!

Poems will be judged by talented, local professionals and our winners will be celebrated at our awards ceremony. In the meantime, be sure to read of all the submissions from our community.

CATEGORIES

3rd-5th Grade
6th-8th Grade
9th-12th Grade
Adult (18 and up)

PRIZES

Winners in each category will receive a gift card, generously donated by the Friends of the Fresno County Public Library.

1st Place: $200
2nd Place: $100
3rd Place: $50

AWARDS CEREMONY

Join us Sunday, June 8th at the Woodward Park Library for the Poetry Awards Ceremony. More information to follow.

Rules of Conduct
Comments Policy

Deciduous Life

A glimmer of derealization bestows on her
A departed leaf takes a fall to tread forbidden grounds
A shrouded enigma it has found
The mirrored forms come such such an allure

Can't bear witness to how long and it all
The calamitous headlong tinged with screaming
Birthright became a sprawl
Now the smoke signal takes its last toll in curtailing airing

An unmoored paralyzed in the walls of lifeline searching
The rustic romantics skin is flaking to ashes
The cracked lips that once endeared from the core within
Now masqueraded with muted skin

Barley are blinking
Are the hanging button by a threatening thread
The tantalizing travesty meticulously sewed wobbles into a clearing
The reread script for a litany is now but a shred

Furling the vestured pall
Crimson stains and splintered veneer
Through and through the exhortation in the bookshelf life of margins
The hatched brandished at the reflection clinked
All of times flashed before the eyes
The quiet feet made the floorboards creak
Sleuthing ensues for a magical healing
Rusty hinges unclench the cordiform door
A knell was rung

A deciduous cycle bestowed upon the over
Stepping out the corner
A spontaneous flashover
Its magnificence made sense to the mourner

The most glamorous exclusion
The diaphanous red fleshed lids are shined
Once spellbound to the wistful ground behind
A bygone wonderment or escapee that seemed all an illusion

I’m nameless, placeless, an otherness
Meadows and wood flutter before my bare feet
Flowers grow on skin by arboreal cathedrals previously repressed
New foundations spread like bittle seeds on the fleet

Iv’e braved the great unknown
Untethered the pining and love to survive
Bolting with no compasses or signs
Pass the waltzing ghosts with a lingering haunted
My arcadia
Flushed with mellifluous rings that crinkle eyes
Accustomed to the quickening hues perpetual through the double vision
Unfazed by fallen trees that stumbled her into s tarnished mosaic of crestfallen fractures
At a stance of a mythical enchantress of the thawing and remembering

I deeply breathe
I look around
See the obscureness I have found
I have time for the debrief

A dusty barren ceiling to evergreen blooms
The backlogged dreams breaks loose
A new chapter indented with a forevermore afterglow
The labyrinth of closures that await anointed with the a million tomorrows

--Kaylie P., 9th-12th Grade

Peach Pits

Rachael, you were afraid
Of that final year…
When your childhood was taken from you.
All you had worked toward
Was traded away to a wealthy fool.
A businessman who will never appreciate it
The way you did.
He will turn your twenty acres of happiness
Into ugly trees which bear no fruit.
Your peach trees will be ripped out
And peach pits will be buried under the discs.
All your animals will be sold away.
The closest thing you ever got to a wild stallion-
Brimstone, a beautiful little black horse,
Wearing a white star on his forehead-
Suddenly loaded into a trailer
As you watch, helpless, from your bedroom window…

And you will be afraid
for the years ahead…
Because that precious time in your life
Held memories you know can never be recreated.
And everytime you find an ancient peach pit,
Buried in the dirt from the time in your life
When you lived on a farm…
You’ll miss all the rabbits named Peanut running loose in the yard
You’ll miss grape eating contests with Samuel
You’ll miss eating two handfuls of ripe, juicy peaches
You’ll miss racing up and down the rows on a blue dirt bike
You’ll miss feeding carrots to Brimstone…
But those peach pits were buried
Along with the remains of these shattered memories
And watered by my tears from my bedroom window.

But don’t be afraid anymore
Because one day…
You will own a grand ranch
WIth peaches, apples, cherries, and red grapes
The ancient peach pit
Buried in the dirt
Will begin to grow roots and sprout
And you will care for many beautiful horses
With white stars on their foreheads
As the sprout pushes out of the soil…
You’ll remember playing in the dirt with Jonathan
You’ll remember raising little chicks in the barn
You’ll remember learning how to graft trees with Dad
You’ll remember the feeling of the cool wind through the blossoming trees
When your peach tree grows…
So many new adventures will be created.
Your lost peach pit will grow into a glorious tree!
So Rachael, don’t be afraid.

--Rachael F., 9th-12th Grade

When I was a bright flower

When I was a bright flower,
My petals would shine
With a beam of light-
A soft pink hue, or perhaps yellow-
With not a single wilt.

I used to feel my strength
From the cry of the great big clouds above,
Telling me it was all I’d ever need to survive,
Filling me with strength and laughter to shine.

But now I’m burnt out,
Dried up and brown,
And all I ever do now is wilt,
With everything in me
Being squeezed out.

Every last drop of strength turning frail,
Every last drop of joy becoming misery,
Every last reason to survive withering,
As if it were blown away.

Every last strand of hope changing to despair,
Because this is draining me out
Of anything left inside me.

And the pressure of being bright and big was all too much-
And dried me out before the sun could.

So I no longer rebloom every spring,
But remain the same-
Small and wilted,
Dried and brittle.

‘Cause how can I become a big, bright flower
With the pressure and weight flooding over me,
Like an overwatering disaster?

‘Cause let me breathe,
Let me shine,
Let me find a reason-
Something, just something, to survive.

‘Cause I used to shine, used to be so bright,
When
I
Was
A
Bright
Flower.

But now I’m just
One
Dried,
Wilted,
Flower,
Who could no longer survive
In this climate of pressure to shine.

--Maryana P., 9th-12th Grade

Love

Love is a game
In any game there's winners and losers
Everyone takes risks
Sometimes it requires teamwork
Sometimes people give up
A lot of times people like to hide what they have
and not tell others
People can sometimes cheat
Sometimes there can be more players
A few times people help each other
Love can be complicated, but you just have to
follow the rules

--Celeste M., 9th-12th Grade.   

THE OBSCURE FLOWER

I am a sundrop flower that blossoms

When the sun is out
I burst into bright colors
but I close up when the night approaches

I dream to bloom my confidence in even the gloomiest and dull season
I sway around in different shades and hues
The same speed as a tornado
Just like
All my tumbling worries contained in one closed ball
I wonder if one day it will crack and those colors will swirl into something different

But yet even through the wild winds of life
My roots don’t stick to the ground
I’m just a flower
so delicate and sensitive

The heavy rain pours
The droplets pull me down
My petals droop low
My stem absorbed with hateful dosages of water

The sun
sometimes feels beyond my reach
And so I wait for it to rise
And prepare for it to set

My nights filled with storms and thundershowers
My mornings filled with sunny days and beautiful cheerfulness
I am the sundrop flower that undergoes all those seasons
All those emotions
All those sensations

But soon time will pass…
And my sundrop petals will stay as one through it all

--Evy S., 9th-12th Grade.

The One at the Table

The one at the table sits alone
Beside them stands the umbra clone
With great might the mighty stands
Ready to unleash a fateful plan
The sat is pretty
The standing is witty
Ready to attempt a fateful demise
While the other watches
The gloom fills the room
As the sitting does nothing to stop
The life and the great
The strength of one's weight
Will always bare down
Unless you do something about it

--Akari M.H., 9th-12th Grade

Ash Alexander Le Folk De Frost

From a boy with the purpose of beauty
Running to the fiery feathers of the phoenix
Found but yet forgotten
In a field of feathers
Wandering for sight beyond his eyes
From the sky, to the underground
A farewell to his purpose
Now a new feather of origin
In a field of feathers

--Isabella B., 9th-12th Grade