2020-21 Combining Voices Winners Announced

For twenty-one years, the Morris Museum of Art has hosted Combining Voices, a special literary competition for students in grades 4 through 12. Each year from August through March, in their classrooms, at home on their computers, and on special tours of the museum, students from all over the Central Savannah River Area and beyond view and discuss five works of art in the museum’s permanent collection. Afterward, students create works of poetry or prose inspired by one of the paintings and submit their work for judging. It is a competitive undertaking. 

At EDS, students viewed each of the five works of art online and responded to the artwork by composing original poems and short stories based on the artwork. This year, 8th grade student, Reed W., won first place for his outstanding creative writing with his poem, “Snake Chair,” inspired by Ida Kohlmeyer’s polychromed sculptural Medusa Chair. Congratulations, Reed! 

Ida Kohlmeyer, Medusa Chair, 1985. Polychromed wooden chair. Gift of the Arthur Roger Gallery. Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia.

Snake Chair

by Reed W.

A wooden chair that sits alone in the dark

Cut and carved from a tree’s bark

A colorful chair waiting for a fool

This chair is not just a chair or a stool

Wooden snakes twist around its frame

Dangerous it is; that’s why it’s locked by a chain

Daring you to sit in its seat

It wants something to eat

It may look harmless, but the chair is alive

It stays docile for now, or is it a lie?

Wooden snakes; make no mistake; by what some say

If you take a seat, then dead you will stay!