Student writers from every grade are sharing their pieces during Writer’s Day on Tuesday, December 1 in front of other students and professional critics.

Freshmen Macy Vander Pas and Emma Brumage-Kilcourse, sophomores Kaela TeRonde and Tess Melvin, and seniors Allie Brandl and Elizabeth Gilbert will perform and share their poetry pieces

All agree that writing has improved their lives in so many ways and Writer’s Day is another opportunity that they will have to show what they’ve got.     

Q: When or why did you first start writing?
Brandl: I started actually writing when I was about five.  I used to write stories all the time and then in middle school I started getting really into poetry.  I was not good at it at all until sophomore year when I took creative writing.  That’s when I started liking poetry more.  I  never really appreciated it until we had ‘Poetry Mondays’ everyday in Creative Writing.  Mrs. Schmitz really helped me learn how to appreciate poetry and how to write it better.  When you’re a kid and you write, it’s like, ‘oh just the lines rhyme and now it’s a poem,’ but it actually has to have some sort of meaning.
Gilbert: This poem! My first and most recent. I was inspired by Noel Brindise, she graduated last year, to write it. Last year she learned about sestinas in AP English and Ms. Rushan said, ‘they’re really hard to write,’ so Noel took that as a challenge, wrote her own, and showed it to me. She explained how the form was and how there’s a certain order of the lines so the end words have to repeat and she said it was really hard to write and had to choose words specifically.  I loved it. I thought it was the coolest thing. It was interesting and deep and you could do so much with it. So I thought to myself, ‘one day I’m going to write one, but I’m going to wait until we learn about them.’ Then Ms. May said it would be really hard, but I decided to write it anyway.  One go and it worked.  

Q: Why do you write, now?
Brandl: Everyone has a way to either relax themselves when they’re upset or calm themselves down or just if they have a feeling, how to express it.  Some people do art or act, and I’m not good at any of those things, so I write.
Brumage-Kilcourse: I just started writing disjointed — sort of lists of feelings and sensations — and they turned into poems. I guess it’s just kind of evolving from recording down the things that you’re feeling, to actually putting them in the thing that sounds pretty and makes sense.

Q: What are your thoughts about Writer’s Day and are you excited?
Brandl: It’s like I’m nervous because I’m going to be presenting in front of my entire English class and other classes.  I mean, most likely they probably won’t even be listening that much, but I’m still nervous about the people who are listening and who are better writers than me.  [I feel like they] are going to be like, ‘oh that sounds juvenile’ or ‘stupid,’ but I’m really excited to share what I’ve written because I’m very passionate about it.
Melvin: We need more recognition for writers in our school. It’s very important amongst the many sports, clubs, and teams we have, and I think we need to have more recognition for our writers, our poets, and our public speakers.

Gilbert:  I’m super excited about it. When I was writing the sestina, [the poem I am reading for writer’s day], it was around the deadline week and I only had a sheet of little thoughts and stuff I knew I wanted to put into a poem. I talked to Ms. Pine about writing and asked her if she could help based on her own writing and she told me she writes novels but if I should finish it in time —keeping in mind that this is three or four days before the deadline — that I should submit it for writers day.  I did and I figured I had nothing to lose!  I also read it in front of the [Creative Writing] so group so that was a big step.
Vander Pas: I think it’s a really cool opportunity for kids to enter their own pieces, [otherwise] they never really have a chance to turn something in if they write a lot. I think they’ll be a lot of interesting styles of work. I think it’s a nice opportunity to share my work and put something out there. I don’t know if I’m reading mine yet.  I talked to the librarian about someone else reading it for me. If I do end up reading it, it will be a big confidence boost.

Q: Why are you most excited?
Brandl:
I’m just really happy to actually be able to share what I’ve done because I apply to Lit Mag every year and [not many people read Lit Mag], so you don’t really get to share [your work].  The chances of me being a published poet are really slim so this is my chance to share something I’m really passionate about with other people and to maybe inspire other people to participate in it next year or to go home and write something.  It’s way easier to write something once you’ve been around poetry.

Q: What’s the biggest change your writing has gone through and how?
Brandl: Poetry is a really artistic way to say something without actually saying it.  When I was young and I would write poetry I would write stories that would rhyme and [were] super straightforward.  There was nothing to analyze about it.  Now, when I write, I can show it to my friends and be like ‘okay, so what do you think this means?  I want to know if you’re getting my symbolism.’  Usually they can, which is good, so I guess just being able to actually write real poetry instead of just childish poetry and being inspired by other writers to have symbols and all the stuff that everyone makes fun of in English classes for.
Brumage-Kilcourse: If you look at my poems from seventh grade — which is a thing I don’t do very often because I don’t want to be reminded that I was ever in that state of mind — [they] were just emotion and that’s all. My eighth grade ones were coherent narratives, which is really new and I don’t do that much and I was trying to make a point and I feel like that’s the difference between now and back then. Now I have something to say.  The last one I did comment on gender; I did say something about the objectification of women and I really like that. I like not just being known for the things that I feel and the pitiful expressions of them, but I like saying something.

Q: Why did you decide to share your writing through Writer’s Day?
Brumage-Kilcourse:I wanted myself and other writers to have recognition and I was also really excited about the panel of professional writers because I wanted that advice from people who ‘made it.’

Q: What piece did you decide to share for Writer’s Day?
Melvin: I wrote a spoken word piece originally for a spoken word group I participate in. I decided to publish it for Writers’ Day because it’s something that I’m incredibly proud of. I have come up with a lot of ideas, and some of them have turned into things that I’m pretty happy with.  [Others] have wound up turning into nothing.  This idea was something I’d never really thought about before, and it involved a lot of metaphors. I wanted to write a piece on morality because it’s something that’s always fascinated me.
Gilbert: I wrote a sestina which is called Unfinished. It’s not very chronological nor does it tell a story. It more so develops the struggle to understand your own thoughts. Students in high school can really relate to it because we’re trying to figure out who we are and what we think and why we don’t understand something and what you can do to understand and how to explore your own thoughts and be ok with yourself. It develops from ‘what am I doing, I don’t understand’ to a ‘it’s clearing up a little bit, it’s ok if I don’t understand everything, I can still be at peace with myself.’
Vander Pas: It’s called ‘Peace For the Broken.’ Its this whole image of a storm, but at the end it is then that I am truly at peace because there’s a storm inside of you.

Q: What is your favorite piece you’ve written?
Brumage-Kilcourse:My favorite that I’ve probably written in a while is a poem called Sunday Dress. I actually read this when I won Young Authors in seventh grade, so this one’s actually old. I think it’s one of my favorites just because of how it makes people think. It’s actually a really morbid sort of checklist about the things that somebody might do before committing suicide. I like the idea of going through that list and how you have your daily life that you do every single day that people think is normal versus what you’re actually thinking on the inside and how you have to maintain both lives at the same time. I just thought that was really interesting so that’s why I like that one.

Q: When you wrote your piece was there anything going on in your life that inspired your writing?
Brumage-Kilcourse: Yes, actually. Back in seventh grade, about two years ago, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and I wrote that poem a couple nights after I was diagnosed. That one was just a moment in time knowing that this was the worst that things were going to get and that things were only going to get better from there.

Q: How do you feel about your piece and why are you deciding to share this particular one?
Melvin: It started out as this little venting piece that I wanted to write, but it actually turned into something pretty.  I use the word ‘deep’ sparingly because I don’t think that’s what it is, but it’s supposed to be witty and kind of satirical, a little sharp. So I started writing it, I stepped back, I looked at it, and I realized I really like it.
Gilbert:The poem itself makes me happy because it’s definitely a verbalization of what I think and feel.  Just kind of the process I’ve figured out is that it’s ok to not understand your thoughts or the stage of life you are in. You need to trust that you’ll end up where you need to be. You may not understand how you feel or how you think. Through this process I’ve embraced the confusion of growing up and finding who you are.

Q: What do you hope to get out of Writer’s Day?
TeRonde: Just getting out there, doing something different. I’ve never done [Writer’s Day] but I’m [excited] for other people, not just my friends, to hear [my piece]. I’m scared to get in front of a bunch of people and I’m nervous, but I think I’ll be good.

Q: How will this help you in college or just overall throughout life?
Brandl: Actually, it’s helped so much with college essays.  For applying to college, you know, you have to do like a ‘personal essay’ and I pretty much wrote it about changing schools my sophomore year and how writing has helped me with my transition and transitioning has helped me become a better writer.