Three Arrowhead Students Win Milwaukee Public Museum’s Poetry Contest

Three Arrowhead students poems have been selected as winners in the Milwaukee Public Museums poetry contest

Three Arrowhead students’ poems have been selected as winners in the Milwaukee Public Museum’s poetry contest

Three Arrowhead students have won the Milwaukee Public Museum’s 2016-2017 poetry competition. This was the ninth annual competition held by the museum. The Arrowhead winners are juniors Andrea Beaudry and Joey Hassler, and senior Kenneth Walloch. According to lead judge and the museum’s Education Director, Richard Hedderman, these winners were chosen from 400 statewide submissions.

Beaudry, Hassler and Walloch were encouraged by their Creative Writing teacher, Elizabeth Jorgensen, to submit to the competition. “In Creative Writing, everything students do has an authentic purpose. In class, students are practicing what it’s like to be a professional writer. The MPM’s poetry competition is just one of several writers’ market students submit to,” Jorgensen says. “I am so proud of these students. Each student did something original and creative in his or her poem. These students should be very proud of themselves, as I am of them.”

Each year, the MPM has a different theme for the competition. This year’s theme was food. According to the Milwaukee Public Museum’s website, “Students are encouraged to write poems exploring the ways in which food, culture and history intersect, finding connections between what we eat and who we are, and how culture and identities are formed through food.”

This theme was inspired by the museum’s traveling exhibition, Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture, with food and eating utensils represented throughout the Museum’s exhibits. According to the Milwaukee Public Museum’s website, “Usinger’s Sausage, Mader’s Restaurant, Roundy’s Grocery Store and the bakery are all features of The Streets of Old Milwaukee gallery reflecting this theme, and traditional ethnic foods are displayed on many tables throughout the 33 cottages in the European Village.” The exhibit further features Native American food-ways.

The winning students will read their winning poem in the Museum’s theater on May 13th and participate in a workshop. They will also have their poems published on the MPM website toward the end of May and become part of the museum’s collections. More information will be posted here by late May.

“This is a rare and huge honor. Being part of the museum’s collections and having their work published on the MPM website speaks volumes about the work the students have done,” Jorgensen says. “This is an awesome achievement.”

The theme for the 2017-2018 Milwaukee Public Museum’s poetry competition is 10 at MPM. According to the MPM’s website, “The theme focuses on ten iconic exhibits that highlight the Museum, its collections, and mission, and celebrate its legacy as one of the region’s most treasured cultural institutions. While any of the Museum’s many fascinating exhibits could easily qualify as signature, representative features of the institution, we have chosen the following ten due to their consistent popularity with our visitors, and their potential to inspire rich poetic interpretation.”

Hassler says, “While writing the poem, I really wanted to do something special, but I wanted it to be unique to me. I figured the best way to do this was to write it in a creative format. In my poem I used 26 lines, one for every letter of the alphabet, and each line contains 11 syllables. That’s why the title says 11×26.”

The ten iconic exhibits are the Hebior Mammoth, Humpback Whale Skeleton, Streets of Old Milwaukee, Butterfly Vivarium, Hell Creek, Native American Pow Wow, Crow Indian Bison Hunt, Masai Lion Hunt, Crossroads of Civilization and the Japanese House and Garden.

 

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Beaudry’s submission:

Summer Time Snack

Fruity

Orange And Yellow

Round And Long

So Many Flavors

And Shapes Too

Best In The Summer

So Ripe It Is

Every Bite Juicy

Mouth Watering Too

Add A Little Chile

Call It A Day

***

 

Hassler’s submission:

The Story Behind Food (11×26)

Apples: tumbling down from atop the trees,

bacon: a crispy snack to go with your eggs,

cake: the fluff that tastes like a good birthday sounds,

donuts: lathered in a delicious frosting,

eggs: the protein we all need to start the day,

falafel: oh, how I crave that crispy crunch,

grapes: plucked one by one from the vine, gone too soon,

honey: paired with tea, relieves a scratchy throat,

ice cream: satisfying sweltering summers,

jelly: the compliment to peanut butter,

ketchup: the sauce making some fries a crime scene,

lasagna: red sauce in a pasta sandwich,

meatballs: adding flavor to the spaghetti,

noodles: dancing in a pot of hot water,

oatmeal: my breakfast on a lazy Sunday,

pizza: equipped with a cut sausage topping,

quesadilla: melted cheese surrounds chicken,

reuben: a simple sub with loads of flavor,

spaghetti: playful noodles covered in sauce,

toast: starts the day, my morning burnt bread, bummer,

upside-down pineapple cake: sweet and fluffy,

venison: the tough, chewy, gamey deer meat,

waffles: engulfed in loads of sticky syrup,

xacuti: a spicy dish with curry sauce,

yogurt: nutritious, tastes like healthy pudding,

zucchini: long and green, but not super lean.

***

Walloch’s submission:

    Building the Perfect Calzone

Pepperoni chosen first,

bacon creates a crunch,

peppers generate color,

and cheese the foundation.

chosen to build the perfect calzone.

 

The pepperoni, sliced to thin circles,

the bacon, cut to be sprinkled across,

peppers craftily placed to make a picture,

with cheese spread in layers to give it ground to stand.

The cook does these to build the perfect calzone.

 

Placed over the flame,

the dough turns to a crisp brown,

the cheese turns hot like magma inside,

as hot as the flame below it.

The fire transforms these to build the perfect calzone.

 

Removed from the flame,

it’s prepared for it’s final journey,

and placed in front of me.

I take a bite

and reminisce in memories of past calzones.

All to eat the perfect calzone.