Four EDS 8th Graders Win in Morris Museum Creative Writing Competition

Not one, but four EDS eighth graders will be recognized at a special ceremony at the Morris Museum of Art on May 18th for earning 2nd place, 3rd place, and honorable mentions in the Combining Voices literary competition.

My eighth grade literature students visited the Morris Museum’s website to view five preselected paintings from the permanent collection. After viewing and discussing each of the paintings, many students wrote a poem or prose piece inspired by one of the paintings to submit to the contest.

Alex W.’s The Artist’s Lonely World, inspired by “The Artist in His Studio”, won second place in the middle school prose category. Crimmins H.’s poem, Bayou, inspired by “Camp on the Bayou”, won third place in middle school poetry. Ashley J.’s Down on the Bayou and Evan M.’s Life on the Bayou earned honorable mentions in middle school poetry.

Way to go EDS writers!

The Artist’s Lonely World (Second Place Middle School Prose)
By Alex W.
Inspired by Frank Wright’s The Artist in His Studio

The world has stopped turning, but the sun keeps burning as the last man has started painting. The room is messy and small with paint all over the wall and contains the last man. The town is quiet and still. The last man has been the last man and artist since he was a boy. The paintings are engulfing the artist, so he stuffed them behind the wall. The artist is the only one there in the silent, boring town and has been for a while.

The artist is unhappy with his piece of art but he doesn’t start over because he knows that time is short. He is in an empty, abandoned world for inspiration in the gloomy, lonely town. He has to finish the painting because he knows that it is for someone important whom he has never met. He has been working on this for thousands of years without sleeping or eating because the artist knows that time is running out. He has been mixing colors for a hundred and seven years to match the boy’s perfect golden face from his vision when he was young. Time is running out and the artist is not even finished yet, and after a thousand years he is almost done.

Ten years later the painting is now complete, and the artist is just waiting patiently for the visitor to come. The last man has completed his task that has taken a great amount of time. The artist hears a loud knock on the wooden door and knows that it is the one he has been painting for. Creak and crack goes the floor as the painter slowly approaches the loud knock at the door. The artist stops a few feet away from the old knob that has only been used once. The lonely man knows that the time has come, and he is no longer going be alone in the empty, silent, still world.

When he turns the knob and opens the door, no one is there and he is still alone. He closes the door and tries to open it again, but it is locked and will not open for a third time. He turns around and walks a small, slow saddened walk to match his depressed mood. The artist picks up the painting that he as been working on ever since the world stopped turning and he found himself alone. When he looks at the painting, he sees that the young boy he painted is no longer there but knows that the boy will be back and knows that he is no longer the last man on earth but is still alone. The world starts turning and the sun is burning, and the creator of the boy keeps painting and waiting for the little boy.

Bayou (3rd Place Middle School Poetry)
By Crimmins H.
Inspired by William Henry Buck’s Camp on the Bayou

There once was a bayou,
lived three old men,
each having their own little shack.

The three old men,
on a dark and gloomy day,
decided to go to town,
to buy more bait.

They took their boats,
and sailed away,
on a two-day voyage.

Down on the Bayou (Honorable Mention Middle School Poetry)
By Ashley J.
Inspired by William Henry Buck’s Camp on the Bayou

The smell of wet moist grass
and the river nice and warm
Spanish moss in the trees
down on the bayou

Now I, the alligator, see it all
fish biting lines, trees big and tall
as I sit amongst the banks
down on the bayou

Small children are warned
not to get too close to the banks
because the water is often filled with snakes
But we all get along
down on the bayou

Life on the Bayou (Honorable Mention Middle School Poetry)
By Evan M.
Inspired by William Henry Buck’s Camp on the Bayou

I live in my shack with only my dog
I live by a sleepy river where I go fishing
I have a canoe made out of a log
I live a simple life where nothing goes missing

I have one neighbor, a girl named Sue
I think I like her, but I’m not sure
I have everything I need down here in the bayou
I want nothing less and I want nothing more
I just want to sit with my dog, log, and pole
Everything is calm and peaceful down here