Westover Junior Kendra G. wins first place in Thornton Wilder Writing Competition

Congratulations to Kendra G. '25 on her recent first-place win at the Thornton Wilder Writing Competition. open to all New Haven County high school students, this competition is named for longtime Hamden resident and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright, Thornton Wilder. Each year students are awarded for their creative writing and this year junior Kendra was awarded first place! Kendra shares, "At the award banquet, I was able to meet all the other winners and hear their works, including their inspirations and the judge's commentary. There were three poetry winners and three prose winners. I won first place in poetry." 

Read Kendra's first place poem carpe diem below.

carpe diem                                                                                                                 

abandoned by the ebony,

the chalk dust lies unswept and

piling from the week of grammar lessons,

a blizzard of nouns and tenses

as the teacher, whose name i don’t recall, 

teaches the class a new topic, which i cannot remember.

i see the snow-covered branches

parting atop the hill where

the path to the forest lies;

amidst the morning light, the forest,

in all but one spot seems to dim, 

lonely speck aglow

and i can’t help but imagine myself among those seven boys

long gone now, memories faded,

surrounding a lantern, verses in hand

and on their lips,

alone in that cave, forever existing in sentences and stanzas.

i wish to let poetry drip from my tongue like honey

from midnight to daylight’s embrace, too high on 

Whitman and Waldo to have any cares at all.

carpe diem.

i wish to seize the day, to stand and scream,

Oh Captain My Captain-

to be as loud as a gunshot’s echo in a lonely office at dawn,

to be as daring as to profess my love and kiss the girl,

to wail and cry and yawp until my voice is but a whisper-

i think of those boys who knew 

midnight’s lust all too well, 

the biting winds, beating drums 

and off-beat rhythms coursing through their veins,

sucking the marrow from life 

and living.

Oh Captain My Captain-

carpe diem.