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Executive Message
About the Contest

Names
Poems
Schools

Names
Poems
Schools

Partners
Sponsors

2006 Poetry Out Loud Contest in Ohio

Winner Poems

1st Place

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

2nd Place

Meredith Smith � Thomas Worthington High School

�Still I Rise� by Maya Angelou

�Beautiful Black Men� by Nikki Giovonni

�Bilingual/Bilingue� by Rhina P. Espaillat

3rd Place

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

To My Mother

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry, �To My Mother� from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright � 1998. Published and reprinted by arrangement with Counterpoint Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group (www.perseusbooks.com). All rights reserved.