For Second Year in a Row, Anika Fernandes Places in County Poetry Competition

For the 36th year, the Mad Poets Society and Delaware County Libraries have presented the Delaware County Young Poets Competition. All 1st through 12th grade students living or attending school in Delaware County were invited to submit one original poem to be judged by grade level. We congratulate Anika Fernandes ‘27 whose poem titled “Glass Limbs” placed 3rd in the 10th grade category. This is Anika’s second year placing in this competition. 

Winning poems will be published in an annual poetry anthology and posted on Delaware County Libraries’ website, as well as the Mad Poets Society website. The Young Poets Competition will culminate in a special awards ceremony and reading.

Here is Anika's winning poem:

Glass Limbs

Pirouettes in porcelain silence,

spinning beneath a painted sky,

caged in a gilded theater,

where the sweetest melody decides her fate.

The key turns.

She wakes.

She dances.

She is watched.

Eyes like daggers carve into her,

measuring the angle of her arms,

the height of her leap,

the flaw in her fragile perfection.

"She’s slowing."

"She’s stiff."

"She’s cracking at the seams."

But still, she twirls,

toes bleeding against the velvet floor,

a smile etched in lacquered grief.

For the repetitive song will not end.

Faster.

Lighter.

Better.

The music quickens,

demands more,

demands everything,

and she bends until she is nothing but a blur of glass and dust.

One last arabesque—

one last trembling note—

and then, she shatters.

The off-key music continues to play its annoying

tune.

And no one notices

she has

Shattered.