Congratulations Mila - The Whitlam Institute Writing Competition

Congratulations to Mila, Year 10, on being shortlisted in The Whitlam Institute's "What matters?" writing competition for 2022. 

Being shortlisted is a wonderful achievement when considering the statistics – thousands of students entered from around Australia, across 297 schools and, fun fact, a total of 1,758,356 words written. You can find information about the Institute’s competition this year, on its website here. 

You can enjoy Mila’s entry, My Ode to Poetry, below.

 

My Ode to Poetry

 

Oh how I wish to write about the world,

As if words flow freely from my tongue,

And not as if,

I have sat frozen for hours,

Staring at a blank page,

Waiting for the words to speak.

Their whispers never came.

 

I crave to write about childhood dreams,

Of magical wings or fairy dust.

I crave to write about a love I’ve never felt,

And how they cause my cheeks to flush,

And yet I remain silent,

Without a way to say,

I care about my words,

Oh, how I dare for them to stay.

 

I wish the bathe the world in yellow,

To smother it in light,

To wash away the grey,

And chase away the fright.

But my fingers do not meet the keys,

As a fleeting image escapes my grasp,

For my thoughts fear the ink, too permanent,

too cliche.

 

It matters to me,

When the ink meets the paper,

When I finally catch the thought,

And I meet it with delight,

As it runs through the pages,

And I beg for it to wait.

 

It matters to me because then,

I can finally articulate,

The way my brain moves,

I can sort the scribble into sense,

And I can understand,

That maybe what goes on in there,

Isn’t so bland.

 

But then the thoughts slip,

And I hear myself say,

How can poetry matter to me,

A simple poetic soul,

Whose musings fall through my grasp,

And cannot meet the mark.