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Executive Message
About the Contest

Names
Poems
Schools

Names
Poems
Schools

Partners
Sponsors

2006 Poetry Out Loud Contest in Ohio

Contestant Poems

Emily Astorian � Granville High School

�Forgetfulness� by Billy Collins

�Catch a Little Rhyme� by Eve Merriam

�Advice to a Prophet� by Richard Wilbur

Jackson Hille � Columbus Alternative High School

�A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General� by Jonathan Swift

�Altruism� by Molly Peacock

�Forgetfulness� by Billy Collins

Lee Horton � Mount Gilead High School

�Eagle Poem� by Joy Harjo

�Famous� by Naomi Shihab Nye

�Ways of Talking� by Ha Jin

Robert Jones � Eastmoor Academy High School

�The Negro Speaks of Rivers� by Langston Hughes

�Broken Promises� by David Kirby

�To My Mother� by Wendell Berry

Jon Lamotte � Bishop Hartley High School

�Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening� by Robert Frost

��Hope� is the thing with feathers�� by Emily Dickinson

�Trees� by Joyce Kilmer

Casey Osman � Westland High School

�Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night� by Dylan Thomas

�We Wear the Mask� by Paul Laurence Dunbar

�Let it Be Forgotten� by Sarah Teasdale

Meredith Smith � Thomas Worthington High School

�Still I Rise� by Maya Angelou

�Beautiful Black Men� by Nikki Giovonni

�Bilingual/Bilingue� by Rhina P. Espaillat

Altruism

What if we got outside ourselves and there
really was an outside out there, not just
our insides turned inside out? What if there
really were a you beyond me, not just
the waves off my own fire, like those waves off
the backyard grill you can see the next yard through,
though not well � just enough to know that off
to the right belongs to someone else, not you.
What if, when we said I love you, there were
a you to love as there is a yard beyond
to walk past the grill and get to? To endure
the endless walk through the self, knowing through a bond
that has no basis (for ourselves are all we know)
is altruism: not giving, but coming to know
someone is there through the wavy vision
of the self's heat, love become a decision.

Molly Peacock

Molly Peacock, �Altruism� from Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002. Copyright � 2002 by Molly Peacock. Reprinted with the permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. This selection may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.