| Written by Breanna R. |
Walt Whitman, the father of free verse, is among the most influential American poets and, this past May 31, 2019, he turned 200 years old! Walt is such a treasure to the city of Camden and wrote and lived just a few blocks from the Rutgers–Camden campus. The Rutgers–Camden Center for the Arts, along with the Walt Whitman Association (WWA), put together a 200th Birthday Celebration on May 29, 2019 that featured the winners of the WWA’s annual high school Poetry Contest. This year’s theme, fittingly, was Celebration. Through Rutgers–Camden professor Dr. Jillian Sayre, I had the opportunity to volunteer as a juror for the content. I worked closely with Gretel DeRuiter and other two Rutgers–Camden graduate students to read and discuss the contestants’ submitted work. The turnout was amazing—overwhelming, you could say! After much deliberation and energetic conversation, we chose the winners.
The winning poets presented their work and received their awards, followed by guest speaker John Giannotti, and all present moved on to see the Democratic Vistas: Whitman, Body and Soul exhibit in the Stedman Gallery (May 30, 2019 to December 7, 2019). Below are their poems and some pictures from the Stedman Gallery, as well as some information about visiting the Walt Whitman House in Camden!
Annual Poetry Contest Winners
Please take note that the following poems are represented as true to their original form as possible (including poets’ capitalization, spelling, and grammar choices). Because of the limited formatting capabilities of our site, line breaks, for example, may be slightly different.
First Place: Payton Weiner, Grade 10
The Days with Dates I Don’t Remember
It preludes to death, so I don’t celebrate birthdays
The inevitability of becoming a whisper in the wind
Turns the hairs that outline my spine into bullets
A number of years spent together
Does not quantify love like the way Dad photographs Mom rather than the sunset behind him
So I don’t scribble anniversaries on my calendar
And holidays pass
Like how the days of summer blend into one
As if I were to spend $3.99 for a greeting card instead of two packs of gum
The days with dates I don’t remember
I celebrate the most
Those which change my breath into a Shakespearean sonnet
My step into a fifth grader’s haiku
Brushing hands with the boy next door
His touch
Cartwheeling across my fingertips like a girl showing off during recess
When a bee tickled my shoulder
And mom claimed that it had mistaken me for a flower
Find a 20 dollar bill next to a sewer grate
Andrew Jackson skipped home with me that day in the back pocket of my high-rise jeans
Eating a meal without burying pieces under my napkin
Like bodies stripped from their souls
Or hearing the bread whisper “79” because that’s how many calories it contained
When a number had the ability to flood my deserts and drain my oceans
The first time I believed it when someone called me beautiful
Not choking up a “no I’m not”
or “please don’t lie to me”
Singing that song with my hands high-fiving the clouds
The one with the lyrics that were once stained by mascara in my pillow
When “love” was not painted with a positive connotation
Riding my bike
Next to branches beckoning me to dance
That day the sun finally woke up from its two week nap
The stranger complimenting my hair
Because she liked the way it waved to her in the breeze
Allowing brown hair to feel like more than the results of a profusion of melanin
Writing my name in the sand
With a fragment of Sabal palmetto
The ocean crashing around it
Displaying for me that something so temporary had the ability to last two more minutes
And then there was the day I learned about writing
That it could give me the power to
Turn heartbreak into a stanza
A nanosecond into a novel
And tell you all the truth without being honest
So believe me when I say
Days prepared to be insignificant hold the most important celebrations
All of those times I woke up as a pile of dirt
And fell asleep as a garden
Second Place: Eve Jensen, Grade 12
Hereditary
my eyes are brown
not brown like dirt
but brown like the rich soil outside of my childhood home, which knows the grooves of my palms no matter how much they expand over the years
not brown like mud
but brown like the soles of my feet after running through the woods in the torrents, pitch black but for when the lightning through everything into a stark white, like the world is taking a polaroid of us.
not brown like chocolate
but brown like the little blocks my grandmother helps me break, her hands over mine, and drop into a pot with cream and sugar and vanilla extract that smells better than it tastes until it is baked into something
not brown like wood
but brown like the strong oak desk which is large and old and covered in stains from coffee mugs and candles and sunshine, first my father’s and now mine
Third Place: Rachel Agosto-Ginsburg, Grade 10
A Year in Celebration
Autumn
Rain at sunset
The scent of possibility
Harvest moon hangs heavy
Winter
Silent forest
Lost in three-color dusk
Snow covers all things
Spring
Snowmelt river
The ice roars as it cracks
Yawning as it wakes
Summer
Fireworks bursting
Summer in a spray of sparks
Bone grey shadows linger
Fourth Place: Shannon Goetter, Grade 12
Irish Wake
They dance, they dance,
Hail to christ almighty they say
What a lovely life she lived
What a beautiful day
Step left, step right
In the graveyard til night
They sway to her soul’s melody
Lifting from the ground,
Flowing through the trees
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
5 & 6 she rode a bike
7 & 18 she fell in love
1 & 25 she married Mike
3 & 40 she had her son
Right-left-right she was a school teacher
Left-right-left she read books
Right-right-left she grew flowers
Left-left-right she loved to cook
She hums a tune in God’s kingdom
They swing in line
For the lost aren’t truly lost
When you meet them in time
They dance, they dance,
Hail to christ almighty they say
What a lovely life she lived
What a beautiful day!
Honorable Mention: Ty Young, Grade 9
Like Nectar
I find myself sitting in a small room at the foot of a bed near a window
A warm summer shower in late afternoon, tranquil in its release,
Raindrops, fallen soldiers, dapple the glass.
Mighty dark clouds like schooners waver above,
And I bathe in the soft light of the benevolent sun as it pours like nectar through the clouds,
Hidden, yet loving.
And I rejoice!
I yawp in glee and romp in revelry!
We are yet dust within the wake of the universe’s footsteps,
We are but on the precipice of its emergence from a cosmic womb,
A second gone past, forgotten soon,
The sounds of ringing space,
Choirs of collapse,
Resonation with entropy,
As immortals vanish,
Earthly bodies, tarrying no more.
Yet, I feel compelled to celebrate!
To celebrate the purple evening of a tired August, galumphing into soft and heavy slumber.
To celebrate the rats, plump on waste, scurrying beneath subway cars as they roar down the track.
To celebrate the hazy, billowing clouds of midsummer, airships trekking across clear blue.
To celebrate the hulking turkey vulture in grey autumn, stalking the forests of the night.
To celebrate the weightless snow, powdering and silencing a city of grand monoliths.
To celebrate a bike ride down a hill in spring, and how the whistle of wind gives way to the ring of peers, a timid cadence.
To celebrate these specimen days in which I nearly forget myself in love and song and joy in the simple pleasure of living!
And as I slowly arise from a deep slumber in early morning, I hear the call of a songbird, or perhaps it is a mocker, and I close my eyes and proceed to be.
Democratic Vistas: Whitman, Body and Soul at the Stedman Gallery
It was super busy at the exhibit after the winners read their poems, so I grabbed some finger foods and ran to my car in the unfortunately-timed downpour. I made it over a few days later to check out some pieces by artists such as Caroline Carlsmith, Paul Cava, John Giannotti, and others. There was even a replica of Walt’s rocking chair that you can sit in and rest your hands on carvings of his own hands!
Erika S. enjoying Walt’s rocking chair. 
Hands on top of Walt’s wooden hands.
The work was beautiful and super diverse. The glass orbs also had hands and bodies hidden in them. Look closely at the orb on the left and you will see that the roots of the vegetation are shaped like humans!
Visit the Walt Whitman House
The Walt Whitman House is located at 328 Martin Luther King Jr. / Mickle Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey, 08103. It was built in 1848 and purchased by Walt in 1882. It was the only home Walt ever owned, the home of the final edition of Leaves of Grass, a site that hosted visitors from around the world. The house has been restored and is considered a New Jersey State Historic Site and a National Historic Landmark. When I visited about a year ago, I remember the striking decor, the quirky busts; being able to look out of his bedroom windows to his view of the outside street was surreal; breathing in the gardens; taking note of the bathtub under his bed.
The historic site’s normal operating hours are:
- Monday and Tuesday: Closed
- Wednesday to Saturday: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m.
- Sunday: 1 to 4 p.m.
- Closed for most state and federal holidays.
Tour schedules and hours are subject to change. If you wish to visit the house, it’s recommended that you call ahead: (856) 964-5383. General admission is free (although a small fee may apply for group reservations). Be sure to make a donation if you can!