Glendale, Clark best poetry contest

Alecia Foster

GLENDALE -- Glendale and Clark Magnet high schools dominated this

year’s All District Lions Club High School Poetry competition.

Twenty-five students from Glendale, Clark, Hoover, Daily and Crescenta

Valley highs competed in the annual event.

Five winners were chosen: Jeffrey Thompson of Glendale High and Regina

Varsh of Clark tied for the first and second spot, Cristina Frankian of

Clark and Elizabeth Cooke of Glendale tied for third and fourth and

Rebeca Medina of Glendale took fifth place.

Glendale High School won the overall competition.

The following is the complete text of Jeffrey Thompson’s winning poem:

A Prodigy

A prodigy, that’s what everybody said,/But now on a beach he lies

dead;/An enemy bullet lodged in his head.

He graduated high school as valedictorian,/Ready to study at Harvard

to be a historian,/ But the drums of war became very loud,/ And my friend

and I left to “make our nation proud.”

We signed our names and boarded a train,/To boot camp we went for six

weeks of pain,/And then onto a ship we went right away;/With nothing but

ocean, day after day./

At last we were ordered to hit an enemy shore;/A victory, it was said,

would win the war./I wrote three more letters to my mother that

night./And we re-checked our equipment ‘til the first break of light./

My friend and I boarded a landing craft,/And I thought with dread, it

was just a raft./ The navy guns opened up onto the shore,/As I prayed

once again for what was in store./

As we crossed the waves as fast as we could,/I heard the low humming

of bullets biting wood./Th next thing I knew I was thrown towards the

sky./ Oh no! Oh no! Was I going to die?

The next thing I remember I was dragged across the sand,/I know it

felt good to be back on dry land./I looked up and saw my savior, my

friend./ He said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothin’, this isn’t the end.’/

In a flash a red he fell on his back;/ Becoming just another casualty

of the attack./He saved my life that day, do you know?/He forever became

my greatest hero./

I too died on that day,/Seeing my friend being carted away./ As he is

being buried, I would just like to say:/ War causes hate, hate causes

war;/ It can’t be tolerated any more!/