Poetry contest submissions

I have submitted some of my previous poems to various poetry competitions. For each, I took a screenshot.

Corsellis Young Critics Competition:

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award

Open Ages "All Ages" Poetry Contest

Haiku Competition

Teen Ink Competition

Poems in Different Forms

These are several poems I have written since May. They are all in different formats.

Haiku:

Quietness engulfs

The night, the fresh cool winds shake

The sakura trees.

Acrostic:

Mountain

Massive titan! Thou had lived

On Earth for millions of years

Under the rule of Mother Gaia.

None ever dare to challenge

Thou strength. Thou could withstand the relentless

Attacks of the Poseidon’s storms and the

Infinitely powerful gales. Thou unmovable body protects and

Nurtures us from the wrath of Gods! O great mountains!

Ode:

Ode to grass

O great Grass Empress, your grace surpasses every living thing.

Each of your strands helps your allure.

Your eternal green unfaded domains

Outmatch even the intense, ephemeral rose beauty,

Who quickly wilts and falls after spring.

O great Empress, your strands are small and fragile

Like a delicate wine glass,

Yet tenacious like an unending river flow.

Though gardeners may cut every of your grass blades,

Cows chomp on your small precious underlings,

Or the sun bakes each of your strands

Until your whole territory turns into a crisp yellow field,

If you still have one of your roots alive,

You will turn your entire barren territory

Into a lushful green field again

As if you can stand against Nature!

O great Empress, your strength alone

Couldn’t be compared to your kindness.

Your territory has long been

The food and the loo for

Goats, cows, deer, and rabbits.

People would stand on you,

Jump and trample over your underlings

Mow you down if you grow too high

Cut you and change your appearance

Until they are satisfied.

Yet, you do not incur your wrath on any,

But continue to envelope the world

In a gentle, peaceful green.

You are like the powerful

Mother Gaia who was born from Chaos,

But differ in that

You are more caressing.

Limerick:

A flower so in love with her face,

She looked in the puddle for her grace.

Ev’ry day smiling,

Her face alluring,

Until she wilts quickly in disgrace.

Free verse:

You in my world

You are the clear blue waves

Hitting the shore rhythmically

The shiny ocean on which lays

The light that shatters on its back.

You are the small blooming flower,

Whose growth makes even birds smile

The bees and the grass dance

The forest shakes with your bloom

You are the sun in my sky

Brightening every piece of my world.

Your light shows to my eyes

The beauty of my own world.

Epigram:

Black or white?

Perhaps you may believe that

Black and white are opposite colours.

But how do you find white

When black is not existent?

Sonnet:

The sacrifice

Stepping into the depth of the wolf’s lair

Sweats do stick to his clothes. His tingling hairs

Raise quite sharply. There is no passerby.

In the deep dark forest does the den lie

Presence of the thick, black, humid, hot air.

Vast deep darkness did shone the bright eye pair

So sharp it could penetrate a small fly

Far ‘way. Its own brightness does blind his eyes.

Great growl, loud and sudden, gives him good scare

Large, imposing figure appears, fangs bare

Upon the small traveler its cubs fly.

Its existence not heaven can defy.

His death is the beast’s annu'l sacrifice

Which prevents the village from turn’ng to ice.

Concrete:

An hourglass

An hourglass could be imagined as

Two different worlds, one falling slowly to another.

One is the present world itself, in which each grain of sand

Represents a foreseeable action that will happen soon

While the other side is the future world itself, which

slowly, yet inevitably, merge with the sands

Carried by the present world.

Each drip of sand records

The time

And

The history

Of the human history,

An inevitable path of war

Peace, negotiations, then war again.

The sands of time pass by continuously,

Uncaring about the cries of the people and deaths.

Though as slow as turtles can walk, they are unstoppable.

After all of the grains of sand fall down to the bottom

The hourglass flips, the the cycle starts once again.

Short story

Stepping into an Unknown Road

“All right. Shall we begin?” asks Father Garrick. He starts, “Now I lay me…”

“…down to sleep…” my friends and I join in. It is a bedtime prayer. We have to do this everyday. We all know the consequences if we disobey Father. Once he sets his eyes on a person, he will administer the cruelest treatment to the unfortunate kid. Also, this is the last time I will ever say a prayer, so I might as well try to get it over without any trouble.

After the prayer is finished, everyone climbs into his bed. Father Garrick turns off the light and goes into his room, which is behind the door in the far corner. I have not seen what is behind this door. I don’t want to. There was once a kid who tried to see what was behind it, but before he could do so, a Sister caught him red-handed. He was given a bar of soap to swallow the next day. After the incident, Father warned us that we should never touch it. Nobody have done to do such a thing again.

Sometimes, I would see a Sister entering the small room at night and staying there until morning came. Then she would leave early and quietly before anybody could have woken up. And then much later, Father would come out and tell us to wake up.

I turn sideway on my bed and look through a window into a field surrounded by a huge forest. The waxing moon shines upon the forest with a blaring white stare. The light rays of the midnight sun, so intense that I must squint, cast shadows of the treetops upon the clearing. The shadows elongate, slowly and unrelentingly engulfing the clearing with a darkness. I dread that it might also engulf me in a darkness darker than the one already present at this boy-only Christian academy.

I notice a beaver that runs from the depth of the forest into the field, stops, studies the strange environment, and then scrambles back into the distant darkness. Although I think of the forest as a mysterious entity that should not be disturbed at night, I yearn to enter it, to hunt the large bears and the elusive beavers with my family, and to live the life buried in my deep past. Nowadays, I can hardly recall the faces of my sisters, mother and father; they are so blurry that I can only identify them as large blobs of skins with simplistic human facial characteristics. My father always carried a spear around with him and told me that it represented the symbol of our tribe. He showed me the bear figurines, elaborated artworks containing intricate and symmetrical lines done by generations of families preceding mine. He said that I could carve on it as well, but only after I grew up...

I don’t know when I fall asleep, but the moon has shifted behind the building when Manuel, a boy sharing my bunk bed, stirs me. He points to the door that leads to the hallway of the building and tiptoes his way around the maze of beds. In each bed sleeps a boy around my age, completely oblivious to what is happening as he indulges in his deep dream. I follow Manuel.

“This is it,” says Manuel, with a volume not louder than a whisper, “time to get out of here.” He opens the door that leads to the hallway deliberately quickly. It creaks when it is opened too slowly. Keeping the noise level under the heavy beats of my heart, I speed down the hallway and take the flight of stairs to the first floor. All around us is dark, lit only by the weak, flickering candles and the bright moon. The building is surrounded by a mysterious force that can suffocate any person in a lake of quietness. Only the sound of our light, hurried footsteps echoes throughout the hallway.

We pass the classroom, and even though nobody is in it, it gives me creeps. Despite that Fathers and Sisters always remind us to appreciate the classroom, I find it more analogous to an abusive penitentiary. Every time I pass it, it reminds me of a terrible incident about a year ago.

I was returning from my usual recess break. Suddenly, I heard loud footsteps thumping on the stairs. I looked around and saw about five or six Fathers, each holding something similar to a baton, running past me towards the direction of the classroom. I followed them and saw that they were trying to open the classroom door. I didn’t dare to disturb them, for they looked furious and could “explode” the moment I touched them. However, I couldn’t quench my curiosity. I stood behind the adults for a moment, trying to figure out what was happening from their dialogue.

“Where’s the key?” Father Gary asked.

“On the table inside the classroom.” Father Redley, who was teaching the class, replied.

Father Ulrich shushed the others and talked in a sweet, uneven voice, “My boys, what naughty deed have you done? God isn’t going to forgive you for such atrocious acts. If you agree to correct your misdeeds, your punishment won’t be harsh. You may get candies for amending your crimes as well.”

A burst of laughter came from within the classroom. The laughter identified the group behind the locked door as some of my classmates.

“I dare you to open this door!” one of the kids yelled. They laughed louder.

Father Ulrich’s shaky hand tightened around the baton and reddened like the color of a madman’s face. Father Garrick gripped the door handle and furiously shook it, futilely expecting it to open. Father Gary began to slam his fists, yelling,

“You devils. Open the goddamn door. You will be punished, little brats. Just wait until I open it…”

The kids didn’t stop. Father Ulrich, unable to control himself anymore, lashed his baton at the locked door and created a dent that could be seen from the inside. The laughter halted immediately. After a brief pause, someone inside the room cried. It was followed by whispers of consolation.

“If you don’t open the door right now, Father will make you eat soap. Then you will have to stand for 5 hours without moving in the classroom.” Says Father Ulrich, smiling smugly.

“Why should we?” Yelled a person, most likely Manuel, behind the locked door. “Even if we opened, we would eat soaps and stand still for hours.”

“You…”

“You take us away from our home and family, put us somewhere far away that we don’t even know. You make us eat the same, horrible food everyday, food that doesn’t even taste like a meal. Meanwhile, you get all of the extravagant appetites. You replace our names, which carry in them hidden meanings of our tribes, to those that you said ‘were given by God.’ You don’t even allow us to speak in our native language.” Manuel, in an emotional catharsis, fired a round of verbal criticisms without consideration of the future ramifications.

I was shocked by his stupid and bold act, which forced the Fathers to be on the verge of explosion. Father Ulrich gathered all of his might and hit the door again with his baton. Splinters of wood flew in all directions, and in the door there was a hole large enough for him to slide his arm through. He opened it from the inside. Then all the hell broke loose. The Fathers rushed into the classroom, vengefully whipping Manuel with their batons. Meanwhile, Manuel was hugging a young, tearful child in his arm. His eyes were watery and red, but his brows expressed determined defiance against Fathers. Unlike the other kids who cowered in a corner for their own protection, he stared directly into Father Ulrich’s eyes when the door was opened. Coincidentally, the Fathers used their batons mostly on Manuel, leaving the others alone.

The punishment didn’t end there. The children who participated in the “evil deed” were forced to stand absolutely still outside for 5 hours and could not eat food for 2 days. Manuel had worse treatment. Father Garrick locked him inside a small room in the basement for a week, and his food was dumped on the ground in front of him. Although he didn’t die from starvation, his body became a flimsy skin cover that revealed prominent rib cage on his chest. He was unconscious when Fathers took him out, and was left in the Sisters’ hand for treatment. Until a month had passed, he remained the scapegoat of all of the problems that appeared in the academy. The Fathers relinquished their grips on him only when he seemed to be submissive. He always looked down during a conversation with a Father. He remembered every line of the Bible and could recite them with great accuracy. He never defied Fathers, even if they said that his native tribe was a “flock of savages.” It was the most insulting remark I had ever heard throughout my life.

Father Redley also personally picked on those who did not participate in the prank on that day. After the class started, he told everyone to kneel in the classroom for one hour without any talking. I protested,

“We didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Shut up and kneel down.”

We argued angrily until he extended the kneeling duration to two hours. Everyone complained, and even some told me to quit chattering for the sake of the students. I finally gave up and, holding back my anger, followed everyone else. It was not the first nor the last time that I would receive such unfairness and oppression by Fathers, despite that they named themselves “kindly God messengers.” I resolved to search for a way to escape from the authoritarian-like governing structure of the academy.

Vague experiences of hunting in the wood had taught me that any person should always have a partner when traveling alone. Prior to planning the escape, I considered who I could trust as a confidant and who I knew for sure would make the escape with me. At first I found Manuel an appealing candidate, but I soon doubted because he became more submissive to Fathers. However, even after several months of close observation, I couldn’t find anyone who had demonstrated enough opposition to the adults to be regarded as trustworthy.

When I was still deciding who should accompany me, I coincidentally found Manuel reading the Bible during recess. All of my classmates were outside and nobody was in the classroom except Manuel and myself. I asked him subtly,

“Do you like it in this academy?”

“Why yes.” He diverted his attention from the Bible to me. His countenance was a blooming flower in spring. “The academy has amazing food. And the Bible has every single detail on how to live a respectable life…”

“No seriously.” I interrupted, reducing my voice to a little whisper. I glanced at the open door to see if anybody was there. There wasn’t any. “Do you really want to stay here or get back home? To your tribe?”

I noticed that something in him suddenly flipped. His eyes resembled ones of a caged lion. They showed the quiet, unrelenting determination to force its way out of the pen, to break free into its world and to bring harm to whoever had tried to lock it. The eyes showed a vengeful hatred. His hands crunched together and became a fist. I was relieved, and I could sense that he was as well.

We discussed about the plan to flee from the academy. Unbeknownst to me, he propounded most of the plausible ideas that I could not have thought of. It seemed as if he had harbored these ideas for a while, for he was very meticulous about the details of each idea proposed by him. After much consideration in absolute secret, we decided that the best plan was to sneak out of the building at night. He said,

“We should try the stairs near the classroom. Fathers and Sisters usually do not go to that area, and the stairs do not creak as much as the wooden stairs close to the washrooms.”

“How can we get past the gate?”

“There is a tree on the east wing of the building, and a sturdy branch which we could use to climb over and land safely on the ground.”

We thoroughly researched every part of the building before finalizing our plan. We chose the time of the escape to be a night of waxing moon in early summer, when the bright moonlight might provide for us a bonus of sight in the darkness and the warm weather could temporarily sustain us during and following our departure.

***

I force my mind to concentrate on the crucial moment right now. I speed quietly past the classroom, the cafeteria, and the main hall. Although I have seen these rooms hundreds of times, at night they are eerily strange places. In the absence of everyday’s laughs and cries, the rooms morph into animated beings. Every piece of furniture stands motionlessly and silently and watches me with its ghostly, contemptuous eyes. I glance at a sofa and imagine it ask me,

“You dare to leave this place? Do you know what consequences you will bring on yourself?”

Hesitant of the answer, I switch my glance to a table nearby. It smears. Its voice resembles that of Father Ulrich.

“Father will make you eat soap. Then you will have to stand 5 hours without moving in the classroom.”

All of the tables and chairs in the cafeteria laugh at me, as if I was a bunt of all jokes and a scapegoat of every problem in the academy. Then terror strikes me. If we get caught, Manuel and I will be in a crisis. I try to ignore them and realize that I must have been hallucinating. I succeed in blocking out the comments that my imagination generates, although the derisive laugh still rings in my ear.

After several seconds, I am able to return to the present. I can hear the heavy beats of my heart, to which I haven’t paid much attention because I was preoccupied with my extravagant imagination. I fear that the thunderous pounding of my heart can give away our plan by arousing Fathers, for the absolute silence of the academy amplifies it tenfold. I struggle to slow down the heart and alleviate its heavy beatings, but it has a counteractive effect.

We reach the front door before I realize it. Manuel unlocks it and we step into an open field. Immediately we hear the whistles of the wind along the field of overgrown grass, all doing their joyful little dance at this desolated night. Out of the corner of my eyes I see a squirrel flashing up a rustling tree.

We swing around to the east wing and reach the tree that grants us the passage to the real world. The branch that we climb on definitely looks sturdy enough to withstand the weight of one person. Manuel starts the climb first. I begin after he lands safely on the other side. As I wrap my hands around the tree branch, I remember those days when I used to go hunting with my father. He would tell me to climb up a tree and report information about preys, and I would briskly dash up to the treetop. I would see the whole world covered in vast forests and note the domestic smokes of my tribe behind the hunting pack. Nowadays, those skills have disappeared. My hands and feet can’t coordinate well together anymore. I am breathing heavily by the time I can stabilize my weight. I have to pause to regain my breath before working my way across the branch again. For every movement that I make, it shakes wildly, as if the whole tree wanted to remove an extra piece of weight from its shoulder. I reach the other side safely after what seems like an eternity.

Manuel and I sprint away from the building until we have put a large distance between it and us. I take a glance back at the building and a small seed of nostalgia sprouts inside me.

Suddenly, the reality of the outer world, a world that we have been isolated from a long time ago, floods back. We have no families. We have no tribe. We have nowhere to go. Our families are immeasurably far away from here. Even if we found by chance a tribe in the middle of this vast forest, we would not be able to identify their members as our kinships. Our memories have evaporated along the scale of time.

“Let’s go.” Manuel says. He notices that I am contemplating the academy for quite a while.

I nod and face the road ahead that leads into a dark, deep forest. It’s as if I am stepping into a new world. I am not sure where it might lead me. At least this is better than remaining behind my back, a past filled with horrible experiences.

Manuel and I begin to walk blindly into the unknown future, trying not to look back at the haunted building behind us.

- David Nguyen

Play Review: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I started reading Anne Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre several years ago. It wasn't interesting. While other classics seem to have a definite conflict related to the government and worldly philosophies, Anne Bronte’s novels often portray a bucolic setting absent of political unrest. The story’s plot, in addition to the author’s motive, was so peaceful that I gave up the reading halfway through. After all, novels devoted to political ideologies such as The Tale of Two Cities pique my interest more than passive novels do. So when I initially heard the play The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in class, I already wanted to skip the event. I’m glad I didn’t.

            From a personal perspective, the play does not seem overly interesting. I am no experienced play critic, but the part that stands out is the well-written plot compaction during the first scene. Not only does it introduce the characters and their relationships, but it also gives hints to the main conflict of the storyline. This scene is where the protagonist Gilbert, his mother Ms. Markham, his ex-wife Eliza Millward, and the mysterious neighbor Helen Graham are introduced. The director also provides a little hint about the upcoming conflict regarding Gilbert’s love for Helen and her discrimination in the community. Capable of compressing the content of the book into just a few lines, the director is amazing.

            The plot continues with Gilbert falling in love with Helen. Helen lives an ascetic and solitary lifestyle, refraining from conversing with those around her. For example, she once says to Gilbert that she only travels to church on Sundays and stays at home on other days. This gives her a mysterious aura throughout the play, for the audience can question why she tries to isolate herself. Of course, this aura is dispelled after the audience can tap into the diary she gives to Gilbert.

            The diary explains Helen’s past. She is married to an indulgent alcoholic Huntingdon. Initially she finds him attractive, but eventually she cannot bear his attitudes toward the family. He drinks alcohol and neglects his son. He brings other women into the house and has affairs in front of his wife. So with the help of her brother Frederick Lawrence, she escapes with her child and lives in the old house near Gilbert’s community. To prevent her identity from being revealed, she isolates herself from people so that Huntingdon’s relatives won’t recognize her face.

            The diary clarifies a lot of questions from both the audience and the protagonist. Sympathizing with her predicaments, Gilbert swears to protect her from the Huntingdon. But in a rush, Helen quickly moves back to Huntingdon’s family, leaving Gilbert for several consecutive years. Eventually, she and Gilbert meet again and live happily together.

            I thought that a historical perspective of the play can give it more depth. The book came out in 1848 when the patriarchal human society limited women’s rights. The women suffrage movement, around 1900, occurred half a century after the book was written. During this time, women were usually denounced when they made any important decisions or managed businesses without consents from their husbands. Also, married women did not have much power in a family household and were not allowed to disobey their husbands.

The play has a relatively unique focus on the female protagonist Helen Graham, who performs the unconventional actions that a woman in the 1900’s would not do. She argues against her husband Huntingdon and runs away from his home, stealing his child in the process. While such actions may be acceptable nowadays, they were socially undesirable when Anne Bronte lived. Fortunately, she prevented the criticisms of the readers by telling the protagonist’s reasons behind her actions.

Helen has a virtuous, inviolable personality. Her strong moral belief in a healthy wife can’t be swayed, even when she lives with her indulgent husband. In fact, her conviction is so powerful that she is willing to sacrifice her possessions and ranks, exemplified by the escape she makes with her child. She also reunites with Huntingdon in a weakened state, perhaps to sympathize with him and to forgive him for his past actions.

Gilbert’s cliché personality resembles that of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Lysander in Midsummer Night’s Dream. The story describes Gilbert pursuit of love, which culminates when Helen moves into the community. He forces himself through the walls that Helen has established between herself and the society. He makes many visits to her places and disregards his peers’ warning that his reputation could be damaged from his actions. Despite his aristocratic behavior, he acts rashly when he assumes that Helen has been taken by another person. During the first time, he punches Frederick hard, knocking him almost unconscious. He is not as barbaric the second time, but he still displays a threatening, uncontrollable attitude when confronting Frederick.

The play is amazingly simplistic in design. While others utilize tables, chairs, and background scenes to convey the setting of each scene, this play only has the chairs to form places to sit and the bed for Huntingdon. The background has windows, but I don’t think they contribute to the audience’s comprehension. I like the elaborate costumes, for they truly depict the status and personalities of the characters. Helen, for example, always wears a black dress. Black often emphasizes darkness and sadness, both of which she experiences throughout her life. Meanwhile, the flamboyant dresses of other women show their extravagant, outgoing style. Finally, I found the speaking styles of the characters easy to understand. While they speak pure Old English at the beginning of the play, there are some parts later on when they unknowingly switch back to Modern English. Personally, I prefer this style over a pure, incomprehensible Old English style.

This play might have catalyzed the suffrage movement. Through her The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and famous novels, Anne Bronte manages to instill within the women a rare sense of dignity and respect. This sense, through a slow process of incubation, was finally hatched after 50 years. The result? A huge woman-right movement changed all of history and the social structure today.

Perhaps I have put too much importance behind this small classic play. There are other causes of the suffrage movement such as Martin Luther King. Nevertheless, I will endorse that the plot contains a theme of woman liberty.

I am glad I did not skip the play. Until now, I did not realize how such a peaceful plot can have such interesting political influences. I think I will reread Jane Eyre, along with other Anne Bronte’s books I haven’t read yet. Maybe they, just like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, also focus on the underrepresented woman populace during the 1900s.