Shoreline Writing Contest - First Place Winner!

5/17/2020

LOLHS would like to recognize and congratulate
Connie Pan for receiving FIRST PLACE
in Poetry at the Shoreline Writing Contest.

WAY TO GO CONNIE!

Salt Lipped
by Connie Pan
Lyme-Old Lyme High School
Jill Ressler

Poet Edwina Trentham's comments on Connie's Poem, Salt Lipped:
this poem is full of images, some really lovely--"cornhusk dolls left by the swing set"' "scapula moving under the skin" and "little fishes with streaming tails" and the poet clearly has an understanding of what makes a good poem.
The writing contest is sponsored by the Shoreline Heads of English Departments.

I.
Do you ever cry
not an outpouring of longing or anger - but because
you feel
something welling up inside you like a flood in a mine, pushing the little humans
up and out, ragtag
cornhusk dolls left by the swing set in a hurry, in a corner of the playground the grownups couldn’t
see.
I mean this in the best of ways.

II.
Her back is to me and it’s golden like the rest of her, scapula
moving under the skin,
light-full as she walks into the water,
venus in retrograde.
Her face beckons, turned slightly towards me and I am pluto, ensnared
in an orbit
but ever so small and ever so far away.
Hair piled on top of her, nose crinkling in a half-laugh that I didn't deserve to see.
Is she
could she be
laughing for me?

III.
I’m glad I'm alive, mostly.
At the best of times I feel so lucky to feel at all.
People of all sorts, cotton candy at the fair.
The smell of cinnamon from the next room wafting in and curling up on my lap.
I’m surrounded by lilac smiles
and peals of laughter when the sky goes black to grey.
At the worst of times I feel
like I never deserved to make it here, happy,
or like I’m not happy at all, I'm just faking,
or like I’m not faking at all, I’m just dead,
or like I'm not dead at all, but I could be,
under the boats at the marina - barnacles or little fish with streaming tails.
I want to deserve it.