Media release: Pepperell High School AP Language and American Literature students participated in the Literary Writing Contest sponsored by the Booth Western Art Museum. Eight finalists were selected from the state of Georgia for the Cowboy Poetry Contest. Five of the finalists are Pepperell High students. The finalists are: Jessi Hackett, Nolan Thompson, Masumi Askew, Hayden Owen, and Grafton Flock. PHS also has two more finalists who were selected for the narrative poetry contest: Savannah Crabbe, and Jack Bevis. Final recitations will be held at the Booth Museum on Saturday, March 9th at 10:00 a.m.
Photo (left to right) Nolan Thompson, Jessi Hackett,Savannah Crabbe, Hayden Owen, Masumi Askew, Jack Bevis, and Grafton Flock.
My Mother Cry
by Savannah Crabbe
"Getting closer, getting closer." My sweet mother cries.
"We're almost to our promised land
Green grass and blue skies."
I nod to my poor mother, who has walked so far.
I can see straight through her strong eyes
And see her broken heart.
We are on our way to Rosebud.
Mother says we should be safe.
The white men are leading us
So we do not run away.
Mother tells me not to speak.
"Shh, Shh." She moans.
The elders all around me fill the night with groan.
Yesterday my brother tried to stray away.
A white man grabbed his collar and yelled at him all day.
I am glad my mother holds me,
So I don't have to walk.
I just wish we could be back at home.
I miss it quite a lot.
My grandmother walks next to us. She hasn't smiled in days.
She'll say, "Oh, my poor Ewahee." And gently stroke my face.
My mother is so beautiful. I hope I soon look like her.
Right now, I'm just a tiny child
Watching the dirt stir.
We used to be prideful.
We used to be sure.
We used to think that we were safe, because we were so pure.
This move is so different
Than the ones we've done before.
We'd simply run out of things to hunt
Then go and find some more.
But in this one, we're like cattle.
There are no voices heard.
I look up at the sky, and wish I were a bird.
My mother had to leave behind her husband,
my daddy, the chief.
White men made him stay behind
And then I heard him scream.
Mother covered my ears and I began to cry.
I never even got to tell my father,
"Goodbye."
Why don't the white men like us?
Weren't we here first?
I ask my mother all the time,
But she won't answer because it hurts.
We've finally reached Rosebud
And Grandmother is not pleased.
Several others are crying.
Everyone, but me.
I don't understand why we're getting this new home.
When we had our old one, where the buffalo once roamed.
I hold my mother very close. She squeezes me so tight.
This is my first time seeing my mother cry.
A Sense of Time
by Hayden Owen
The concept of time is a relentless being.
Constantly implementing its powers.
It makes landscapes that are worth seeing.
Crafted by wind and showers.
Time does not discriminate.
It equally weathers every land.
A beauty no place can impersonate.
Skillfully crafted by God's hand.
Many go searching for the ultimate beauty.
They yearn for a land that is blessed.
For those that have made this quest their duty,
They need not go further than the West.
When one lays eyes upon God's creation,
The rocky faces and majestic cliffs,
One can't help but to feel appreciation.
The rivers, so powerful and swift.
When standing atop a sheer cliff face,
One gets the best point of view.
It's a point in time when soul will embrace,
A vision of life anew.
The world around you is history.
Formations as old as the Earth.
The mountains concealing ancient mystery,
Keeping secrets since the planet's birth.
The West, unrivaled in diversity,
Where rolling plains meet the open sky.
A realm beyond believability,
Where canyon walls seem miles high.
The clouds are like blankets draped over the lonely canyon.
Casting shadows on the valleys and pines.
The overbearing sun is the land's only companion.
A friend that this world has seen many times.
Every defining feature combines to make a masterpiece.
Many argue that it is Mother Nature's"magnum opus."
No other landscape can match its serenity and peace.
A land where many men have found inner peace and focus.
Beauty is a concept found briefly in time.
A still frame of a land always changing.
The final product is nothing, but sublime.
Beauty forged by countless storms raging.
This land has existed for millions of years.
The snap shot of beauty is nothing on the West's timeline.
To know that this land was once a new frontier,
Can give one's mind a realistic sense of change and time.
When held in the moment of pure amazement,
All time seems to cease.
You realize that there will never a replacement,
For the moment your soul was at peace.
The West, an area who's features so grand.
A land so pure and sublime.
It is here where we learn to understand,
The powerful sense of time.
Contact Information: Tim Hensley at hensley@floydboe.net, or 706.234.1031 ext. 7121
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