Third Place – 2024 Beverly Hopkins Contest for High School Students

“Sometimes we find patterns and forms, like lush flowers, in the least expected places. In a pantoum, the repeated lines and ideas carry the poem’s pulse, and ‘Sidewalk Poetry’ is no exception. Sometimes we find confident elegance, like patterns and forms, in the least expected places.”

Elijah Burrell, 2024 Hopkins Contest Judge

Sidewalk Poetry

by ADDISON FARTHING
Gateway Science Academy

Flowers grow in foolish settings
Where nobody truly cares to look,
Between old pavement, or through netting,
Hidden away in little nooks.

Where nobody truly cares to look,
Or where small children like to play,
Hidden away in little nooks,
Where they spend most of their days.

Or where small children like to play
The flowers bloom once more again,
From where they spend most their day,
Where there is dirt, the small children will restore.

To hope that flowers bloom once more,
Between old pavement, or through netting,
Where there is dirt, the children to restore,
For flowers grow in foolish settings.