One could characterize Sabine Holzman’s poem as haunted or chilling, but these convenient descriptors would miss the subtle twists of this insistent engagement with memory and grief. “Elegy for My Ghost Mother” is a poem of surprising violence, its lines stretching across the page like a drawn out threat. “Here is the truth: you did not raise me to be kind,” writes Holzman, and the truth again and again is presented in a bluntness only cold can cause, as the speaker’s body becomes a frozen lake, an icicle, something a knife is named after. — Sophie Klahr
Elegy for My Ghost Mother
Sabine Holzman is a poet and student from Southern California. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Chapman’s Annual Holocaust Art and Writing Contest, the California Coastal Commission, and has appeared in numerous small magazines. In her free time, she enjoys petting her dogs and reading about girls raised by wolves.
Honorable mentions: Brittany Adames (Emerson College, Boston, MA); Sophie Allen (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA); Margot Armbruster (Brookfield Academy, Brookfield, WI); Marie B (Blue Valley High School, Stilwell, KS); Madison Bissonette (Owatonna Senior High, Owatonna, MN); Emma Camp (Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham, AL); Joseph Felkers (Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School, Grand Rapids, MI); Kate I. Foley; Aidan Forster (Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville, SC); M.E. Funke (Los Osos High School, Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Delaney Gaughan (McKinney North High School, McKinney, TX); Farah Ghafoor (Vincent Massey Secondary School, Windsor, ON); Lily Goldberg (Hunter College High School, New York, NY); Yuri Han (Tenafly High School, Tenafly, NJ); Vincent Hao (Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Austin, TX); Rachana Hegde (Hong Kong International School, Hong Kong); Ty Kia (Auburn High School, Rockford, IL); Danie Knopf-Weinstein (The Fine Arts Center, Greenville, SC); Claire S. Lee (Canyon Crest Academy, San Diego, CA); Morgan Levine (High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston, TX); Enshia Li (Bayview Secondary School, Richmond Hill, ON); Caitlyn N. Mlodzik (The Vanguard School, Colorado Springs, CO); Rebecca Northup (University of California, Santa Cruz, CA); Sarah Pearl; Lenna Peterson (Chillicothe High School, Chillicothe, MO); Joey Puckett (Edina High School, Edina, MN); Jeniffer Quintela (Miami Arts Charter, Miami, FL); Alex Barrera Reyes (Alamo Heights High School, San Antonio, TX); Magnus Saebo (Upper Arlington High School, Columbus, OH); Elizabeth Sheedy (Norwell High School, Norwell, MA); Sahara Sidi (Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology, Petersburg, VA); Tanya Singh (Bhavan Vidyalaya, Chandigarh, India); Griffin Somaratne (The Thacher School, Newbury Park, CA); Lizz Stay (Southern Utah University, South Jordan, UT); Stephanie Tom (Roslyn High School, Roslyn Heights, NY); Noah Williams (Arlington High School, Lagrangeville, NY); Topaz Winters (Singapore American School, Singapore); Alisha Yi (Ed W. Clark High School, Las Vegas, NV); Soo Young Yun (Chadwick International, Incheon, South Korea); Joyce Zhou (Neuqua Valley High School, Naperville, IL)
Gigantic Sequins 