We are pleased to announce the winners of the Fifth Annual 1455 Young Poets Contest. The theme for this year’s contest is Connection, and the guidelines requested the poems to reflect on or react to the contemporary sociopolitical and cultural environment (including but not limited to #BLM, #MeToo, COVID, etc.)

Once again, we received an astonishing variety of poems, and as was the case in previous years, the overall quality of the writing exceeded all expectations. On one hand, this made for some difficult decisions; on the other hand, based on this sample of young writers, the future of poetry will be diverse, passionate, and brilliant.

The judges (1455 Founder and Executive Director Sean Murphy, and co-judge Maia Siegel) admired the range of voices and quality of expression, but—like previous years!—some excruciating choices had to be made. As such, it was with no small relief that we had consensus regarding the ultimate finalists.

GRAND PRIZE WINNERS

$500 Award per poet

Category One: Ages 13-18

With Love, Your Chinese American Daughter

after “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan
TW: mentions of child neglect

I. Jing-Mei
Mother: I am searching      in the bushes for you,      a flash
of fur darting       among the azaleas you never                   watered.
It’s been two months &       I still don’t understand      cerebral aneurysm
how it hardens my lips               my tongue &            every Asian part of me
you resented. You never said            good daughter, proud daughter         the way
they do in movies— with strip-whitened teeth & a freshly baked hug
but I hope you still meant it.            It’s been two months but I’ve given up
searching for rabbits                          in the outskirts of our suburb            where
boys catch dragonflies in their mouths.          Do you remember that lazy Sunday
buried in July,       the evening tiptoeing by      as you taught me mah jong?
Two players not enough     you grumbled     as I fumbled        with my winds &
bamboos & dots.                               All the tiles blurred and suddenly I was seven again,
hunched over the lazy susan as you              retold your Kweilin story        only this time,
you abandoned all three of your babies                   on the journey here,
your clothes the only hope           clinging to your back.           And I would gasp in horror
imagining my siblings thrown from their mother                    like roadkill.
Like resentment.              I used to resent you, Ma,      just a little bit.              Just enough
that I wouldn’t be anything              you told me to.                I could’ve been
your perfect ABG, Ma,             the way Waverly       clenches medals between her teeth
& kisses your ankles in respec                I could’ve been anything.           Only it’s me, Ma,
me, Jing-Mei June Woo,     the way you wanted it,       the ways I could’ve reassured you
during your last breaths that yes, I will keep weaving the strings
of our legacy                      when your hands can no longer          tie the knot.

II. Rose
In the gauzy mid-morning light,
you brew tea—green for you, chai for me—
& tell me your growing pains.

In this home we are floating creatures
of deserted want & belonging.
I trace your younger figure in my steaming cup,

taste the shivers of a woman forced
into captivity at sixteen. A concubine,
left with shattered dignity & glass beads

for a necklace. You brew a tale of power struggles
& survival, fighting for your place
in a family as traditional as the sun’s path across the sky.

Most of all, you were lonely. A woman
must never be her most tender thing.
Your body: a mere possession or transaction.

         So how did you escape? I can’t help but raise my brows
at your tales, each time scarier than before. The past storms your eyes,
a fleeting reminder of all Hsu women’s pain.

The generational scars we inflict on each other.
         Another life, you finally say. In other life you will believe me.

III. Waverly
As a girl I learned to hold my breath around you—
steal the silence, shush the air, turn the key.
I’d hold it in the moments between shock & disappointment
when your face contorted
like the best performer in the circus.
        You can do better. And I did, sweeping every trophy
you could polish & wax so that when guests came over,
wailing Waverly, you’re the daughter in my dreams
I learned that I was an extension of you—
not Waverly the girl, but Waverly the daughter of Lindo
who passed along her talent, her bloodline,
her everything. You gave everything
& I still didn’t want it.
So that day as I escaped from your needy arms,
there came the sweet, sultry release
of inhibition. Flying down Main Street
toppling weaved baskets & Chinese vegetables, I saw her.
She was not the world’s next chess champion
or child prodigy. She was not as delicate, as small-footed
as her mother claimed. She was not even an inkling
of her mother’s ideations. But she was enough for this world to love,
so I named her Waverly Jong.

IV. Lena
妈妈, do you see me?
Or am I a mirage
in the pool
of your regrets?
Lost in translation
are more than our words.
You, a fortress of a woman
I can never conquer.
Last night I dressed
in my father’s clothes,
chipped armor with shin guards.
I slipped onto the drawbridge.
Dead of the night:
larks dared not to sing here.
The doors rustled
but wouldn’t budge.
I touched it, that is to say
I knelt by your bedside. Tenderly,
like every daughter holds herself.
Once the doors vanished
I peered inside—the dark claiming
every hair on my body.
All was quiet. How do you live
like this? Then I saw you, scrubbing at
a marble tile for stains that neither
of us could see. Breathless,
I began to run. Every turn brought me
back to you. Your prone figure
was helpless to my touch. Impenetrable,
just like your eyes when I tried to pry
them open. You were alive, but not living.
Open up to me, 妈妈, someone far away cried.
I beg of you

Category two: 19-25 years old

How to Make a Universe

have two friends
and a lot of wine
sit on mis-matched stools at a townie pub
and shout above the dusty, rural din
about shaving your legs and make up and first kisses
how to be a good feminist, how to fail a little
then get in the car, take a wrong turn, take two
and wind up where you thought you weren’t going
then follow that asphalt till it bleeds
into the sky —and then drive there
keep going till the stars become a fine mist
like snowfall, like sparklers, like the glint
in your headstrong friend’s eyes
and come down to earth, not with a kiss, not lightly
but with a smack, with a laugh
(hot, heavy, from your sternum), laugh
a laugh that takes something from you
and gives it back like a magic trick
return home and do not be tired
plan a life you couldn’t possibly live
and gossip (you must— you are women)
and knit your words into a day you can wear tomorrow
and chalk it up to learning, to experience
(“experience” she said
that’s the only reason I ever wanted to do anything anyway)

Runner-Up Spotlight

Fairouz Bsharat

“sing psalms to the empty, open palms and fill them”

Elane Kim

“The Good Daughter”

Audrey Moyer

“Family Trees”

Sanchita Sahoo

“I still call him Orissa”

Evan Wang

“After I Was Shot”

Chloe Wong

“The Old Lie”

Ellen Zhang

“in some languages”

Sophia Zhang

“Cocoon”

Vivan Zhu

“Seas away from home, I surrender”

What’s Next?

All finalists will be invited to read from their work during a special ceremony Friday, July 14 at 6:30 pm EST during 1455’s 5th Annual Summer Festival. Also, be sure to follow @1455litarts and on social media to stay up to date on Movable Type’s upcoming issue, which will feature the young poets contest award winners and their poems. Subscribe to Movable Type here.