Poetry competition CLOSED 21st February 2019 00:10am
WINNER
Anonymous
Anonymous
RUNNER-UP:
yelluw_always
Family History
Poetry Contest Description
Please share a poem about your family history.
Guidelines
Write a new poem honoring your family history. We want to hear about your heritage, what stories your ancestors have told or passed down through generations.
The Rules:
1. One entry per DUP persona.
2. No erotica; this is open to all ages and can't be viewed with an ECW.
3. No exact word limit; however, attempt to keep it no more than 250 - 300.
4. Any form is acceptable.
5. Hashtag your poem #heritage and link to your poem here. Do NOT copy paste your poem to the competition. The point is to eventually create a hashtag for #heritage ( as heritage and history differ in definition ) we hope will be implemented by the Webmiss.
6. There will not be a public vote for this competition.
You have one month; best of luck to all entrants.
*Co-Host Ahavati and Muses22
Write a new poem honoring your family history. We want to hear about your heritage, what stories your ancestors have told or passed down through generations.
The Rules:
1. One entry per DUP persona.
2. No erotica; this is open to all ages and can't be viewed with an ECW.
3. No exact word limit; however, attempt to keep it no more than 250 - 300.
4. Any form is acceptable.
5. Hashtag your poem #heritage and link to your poem here. Do NOT copy paste your poem to the competition. The point is to eventually create a hashtag for #heritage ( as heritage and history differ in definition ) we hope will be implemented by the Webmiss.
6. There will not be a public vote for this competition.
You have one month; best of luck to all entrants.
*Co-Host Ahavati and Muses22
Shattered Nights
Through my maternal heritage,
I am Gaelic Scots, Welsh
and Breton (Celtic Brittany).
Through my paternal ancestry,
I am joined at the influences of
the eastern Ukraine (White Russian),
Polish/ Hungarian & German Jews.
Through my father’s lineage,
we shall most likely never know
the exact count of how many
members were taken,
to perish on the way to
or while interned at the camps.
So many (also with families)
were swept up in the mindset of
murder for the sake of murdering,
as the war brought out the sadist
in those who had it in them
(finding a niche, their darkest outlet)
through the epileptic Hitler.
And through “ethnic cleansing”
(covering up what any such
cleansing was really all about),
approximately 50 million total
perished due to World War II,
which included two-thirds of the
Hungarian gypsy population.
Although history says he was a
vegetarian, the Austrian-born,
pork-dumpling-loving Hitler
hated just about everything
and everybody (except the
aforementioned dumplings,
and Napoleon, of course).
I’ve always been proud of the
men & women on both sides of
the family, who fought & died,
So no more of them would be
dragged out of their beds during
the terror of shattered nights.
The quote that came out as a
result of the war, I find the most
arresting and particularly
haunting & prophetic, was from:
*Beloved nineteenth-century
German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine,
Who wrote in his 1820–1821 play
“Almansor” the famous admonition:
“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt,
verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
“Where they burn books, they will
also ultimately burn people."
*encyclopedia ushmm org
#heritage
Written by Jade-Pandora
(jade tiger)
Go To Page
•About a part of my heritage I didn’t know of until I went down to the Hall Of Records on my 21st birthday.
•I’ve written a great deal about my family ancestry & heritage. But as a new write for the competition with a suggested word limit, though generous, I have chosen a section of family past that would fit a limit: a history I learned of while I was at college, and continue to learn more about.
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
A March of Ages
Temporal otters of Hylebos Creek.
Father came to us on a mission,
ice-cream scooping with the truck bed,
to witness what being up the creek is like.
I tiptoed scissor fingers over
their slicked-back manes,
not cutting- venturing a floe bridge
of play and birth-rites to a time
before evangelical electricity
imitated stars as an earthy following
of the Mother Lantern that forever cyclicly
is snuffed by the robed lamp-legion
armed with golden staffs tipped
by voiceless bells, a tintinnabulation
of dark ringing out, as stoppable as
a dam simply out of time.
My people crossed the Great Basin
and thought stops there in the great big
openness that seemed to confer,
without interference, the sky as Being
but quickly in the smirk of summer's end
megaphones shouted ten-fold smite
of spun matchsticks: the flattened fled
away, away to lands of the huddled giants.
Great Grandfather pickaxed strikes of darkness,
a preceder ascending to light worship,
and to a lungful of coal.
Great Grandmother was never done in a day
that collapsed fast in the rain shadow,
she swung that draw bar down and lit the wick.
Speedy and swift, for the mountains
whipped the sun before wide-open towns ever did.
The giants massed, washed each other's hair,
preened, and shed the rivulets of strands
we built our thatches with, the torsos were
our boxes, and when the weeping would soften
them, their roots came undone with vengeance,
and so the men did what they could
with sons and cruised, scaled the legs
waving a many teethed sword. Father quit
the day of a Fir with the loose chain and a blow,
glancing him to the future, to his brother’s memorial
where he again thanked a son of the hill people.
For our existence of trail, trial, and luck. The hill people
are near a swear word, a vernacular snub,
reclusive and wild, but others do not know, how
the breasts of mountains ran milk down our throats
on the inside and snowed fat on the outside,
or that giants shake about us in grasping messages
of leaves, skittering and soft. They were canaries,
the Greens and McBrides, following their destiny
that is the deaf child tiptoeing
across the copse scalps leaving
behind impressions nothing like sheep.
#heritage
Father came to us on a mission,
ice-cream scooping with the truck bed,
to witness what being up the creek is like.
I tiptoed scissor fingers over
their slicked-back manes,
not cutting- venturing a floe bridge
of play and birth-rites to a time
before evangelical electricity
imitated stars as an earthy following
of the Mother Lantern that forever cyclicly
is snuffed by the robed lamp-legion
armed with golden staffs tipped
by voiceless bells, a tintinnabulation
of dark ringing out, as stoppable as
a dam simply out of time.
My people crossed the Great Basin
and thought stops there in the great big
openness that seemed to confer,
without interference, the sky as Being
but quickly in the smirk of summer's end
megaphones shouted ten-fold smite
of spun matchsticks: the flattened fled
away, away to lands of the huddled giants.
Great Grandfather pickaxed strikes of darkness,
a preceder ascending to light worship,
and to a lungful of coal.
Great Grandmother was never done in a day
that collapsed fast in the rain shadow,
she swung that draw bar down and lit the wick.
Speedy and swift, for the mountains
whipped the sun before wide-open towns ever did.
The giants massed, washed each other's hair,
preened, and shed the rivulets of strands
we built our thatches with, the torsos were
our boxes, and when the weeping would soften
them, their roots came undone with vengeance,
and so the men did what they could
with sons and cruised, scaled the legs
waving a many teethed sword. Father quit
the day of a Fir with the loose chain and a blow,
glancing him to the future, to his brother’s memorial
where he again thanked a son of the hill people.
For our existence of trail, trial, and luck. The hill people
are near a swear word, a vernacular snub,
reclusive and wild, but others do not know, how
the breasts of mountains ran milk down our throats
on the inside and snowed fat on the outside,
or that giants shake about us in grasping messages
of leaves, skittering and soft. They were canaries,
the Greens and McBrides, following their destiny
that is the deaf child tiptoeing
across the copse scalps leaving
behind impressions nothing like sheep.
#heritage
Written by yelluw_always
(Haley Quaquaversal)
Go To Page
My Village
The village in a valley
surrounded by a forest
ever tranquilly serene
fenced by thick gigantic trees
standing tall reaching for the skies
looking up as if in plea
to be away and earthbound free
Within the village
there is a seer
a medicine man
a shaman
and a chieftain
to whom all defer to
their words are law
all yes no nay
The people live in shivering fear
of flying metals
and flickering boxes
of water in steel tubes
of flashing fire in glass confines
of tall people without their skin
their eyes blue-peeled from the skies
The village within that valley
thrives on in harmony
with nature at its best
hands calloused tilling the land
to plant and farm
all their food are contained
where mother Nature has it
they want for nothing
food off the ground and jungles
water from crystal clear river
scooped with bamboo dippers
to quench their thirst
One day a strange man arrives
with a crossed book on his hand
thundering words of fire and brimstone
golden brown eyes flashing fire
with words of ugliness he paints
everything the people stands for
to be evil and against the will
of a foreign deity
showering guilt on their wondering minds
Sleepy village
a church with a spire
two padres
six altar boys
congregation of fifty five
babies born to be baptised
the shaman has left
for places unknown.
surrounded by a forest
ever tranquilly serene
fenced by thick gigantic trees
standing tall reaching for the skies
looking up as if in plea
to be away and earthbound free
Within the village
there is a seer
a medicine man
a shaman
and a chieftain
to whom all defer to
their words are law
all yes no nay
The people live in shivering fear
of flying metals
and flickering boxes
of water in steel tubes
of flashing fire in glass confines
of tall people without their skin
their eyes blue-peeled from the skies
The village within that valley
thrives on in harmony
with nature at its best
hands calloused tilling the land
to plant and farm
all their food are contained
where mother Nature has it
they want for nothing
food off the ground and jungles
water from crystal clear river
scooped with bamboo dippers
to quench their thirst
One day a strange man arrives
with a crossed book on his hand
thundering words of fire and brimstone
golden brown eyes flashing fire
with words of ugliness he paints
everything the people stands for
to be evil and against the will
of a foreign deity
showering guilt on their wondering minds
Sleepy village
a church with a spire
two padres
six altar boys
congregation of fifty five
babies born to be baptised
the shaman has left
for places unknown.
Written by Grace
(IDryad)
Go To Page
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
Anonymous
Related submission no longer exists.
Anatomy of Family
When I was little, I didn't understand
how part of something could die
while the rest flourished: a tree limb
tiger lily, blackberry bush—and so
forth.
Growing up a gardner, I grew acutely aware
of pruning as a necessity for dying parts
to give the remainder of plantlife
the greatest chance to survive—
At 13, I learned this about humans:
my mother became terminally ill;
they severed nerves to give her body
fighting hope to exist without pain
because in '74, shoulders couldn't be removed.
For five years I witnessed the extent
of what not extracting something diseased
could do to the human physique by
watching it curl into a corpse-like being.
Along years, my father taught me
that you cannot always extricate
a malignant immigrant from your lung
before it infects your kidney or heart.
This was the greatest lesson
death taught me in life: become
shears and prune yourself from toxins:
friends, relationships, and jobs.
Sometimes the cost to survive
is a high price to pay—my ancestors
remitted their lives over trails of tears
and cruel concentration camps.
There are times you cannot prevent
a death sentence no matter how hard
you attempt to preserve a future;
this was the second most important
lesson I learned from both parents
and a long line of ancestral suffering:
know when you can prune—
accept when you cannot;
trust in the seeds you've sown
to flourish as you once did—
as a tree limb, tiger lily
blackberry bush—human
and so forth. . .
~
how part of something could die
while the rest flourished: a tree limb
tiger lily, blackberry bush—and so
forth.
Growing up a gardner, I grew acutely aware
of pruning as a necessity for dying parts
to give the remainder of plantlife
the greatest chance to survive—
At 13, I learned this about humans:
my mother became terminally ill;
they severed nerves to give her body
fighting hope to exist without pain
because in '74, shoulders couldn't be removed.
For five years I witnessed the extent
of what not extracting something diseased
could do to the human physique by
watching it curl into a corpse-like being.
Along years, my father taught me
that you cannot always extricate
a malignant immigrant from your lung
before it infects your kidney or heart.
This was the greatest lesson
death taught me in life: become
shears and prune yourself from toxins:
friends, relationships, and jobs.
Sometimes the cost to survive
is a high price to pay—my ancestors
remitted their lives over trails of tears
and cruel concentration camps.
There are times you cannot prevent
a death sentence no matter how hard
you attempt to preserve a future;
this was the second most important
lesson I learned from both parents
and a long line of ancestral suffering:
know when you can prune—
accept when you cannot;
trust in the seeds you've sown
to flourish as you once did—
as a tree limb, tiger lily
blackberry bush—human
and so forth. . .
~
Written by Ahavati
(Tams)
Go To Page
non-entry
Anonymous said:<< post removed >>
This entry was not "BANNED". It was clearly a violation of guidelines. We didn't point it out publicly. No Moderators were contacted. No violation alert was sent out. It was handled privately so as not to embarrass you. As explained to you very NICELY in private message: due to the guidelines, there can be no erotic content warranting an ECW because it's open to all ages.
You were asked to edit out key words, or substitute another piece before being genuinely thanked and appreciated for participating.
Thank you for the unnecessary drama surrounding your own guideline violation. Carry on.
This entry was not "BANNED". It was clearly a violation of guidelines. We didn't point it out publicly. No Moderators were contacted. No violation alert was sent out. It was handled privately so as not to embarrass you. As explained to you very NICELY in private message: due to the guidelines, there can be no erotic content warranting an ECW because it's open to all ages.
You were asked to edit out key words, or substitute another piece before being genuinely thanked and appreciated for participating.
Thank you for the unnecessary drama surrounding your own guideline violation. Carry on.
The Tree Who Knew All Wars
hatchet-axe
bow and arrow
setting traps
tasting marrow
My tree has roots in Cherokee.
marching through
cannon-fire
reload rifle
battle dire
My tree has roots in Confederacy.
changing names
hiding truth
evading death camps
since their youth
My tree has roots in Jewry.
officer fighting Allies
commanding artillery
medals reflecting
struggle to be free
My tree has roots in Hungary.
The irony
of ancestors
always on defeated side:
The Austro-Hungarian Army
The Confederacy
The Jewry
The Cherokee
Mama and Daddy
fought in US ARMY.
I am their one and only;
a warrior I may not be.
Writing poetry
my battle strategy;
watering hybrid tree
that is my ancestry;
I secretly consider
slim possibility —
dying for what I believe.
#heritage
(Submitted for non-entry for family history comp)
bow and arrow
setting traps
tasting marrow
My tree has roots in Cherokee.
marching through
cannon-fire
reload rifle
battle dire
My tree has roots in Confederacy.
changing names
hiding truth
evading death camps
since their youth
My tree has roots in Jewry.
officer fighting Allies
commanding artillery
medals reflecting
struggle to be free
My tree has roots in Hungary.
The irony
of ancestors
always on defeated side:
The Austro-Hungarian Army
The Confederacy
The Jewry
The Cherokee
Mama and Daddy
fought in US ARMY.
I am their one and only;
a warrior I may not be.
Writing poetry
my battle strategy;
watering hybrid tree
that is my ancestry;
I secretly consider
slim possibility —
dying for what I believe.
#heritage
(Submitted for non-entry for family history comp)
Written by TheMuses22
(Muse22)
Go To Page
Non Entry: Upon the Banks
Heritage is a mallet with which to beat my scalp,
heritage is the reclaimation yard I ran around as a child,
heritage is the stuff that splices you open and plucks at the beating heart, stitches up and leaves Sepsis.
Heritage is a pedophile in the ranks, leaving his black stain as war paint across our family flesh.
Heritage is my sister separated at birth and thrown into a cleaner surrounding but leaving this site more barren than before.
Heritage is not a thing to acknowledge here but a thing needing scrubbing as bacon grease in an oven, as sketches drawn on test paper, as wine on virgin cloth.
I won't write a family heritage poem, she says,
and yet it breathes - too permanent - in her hollow bones.
I won't write a family heritage poem
but I'll leave these old whispers for those who need not care.
I won't write one for the envy of others passed traditions, for the love festering in their spirit. I won't write one,
I won't.
Heritage is a mallet with which to beat my scalp,
heritage is the reclaimation yard I ran around as a child,
heritage is the stuff that splices you open and plucks at the beating heart, stitches up and leaves Sepsis.
Heritage is a pedophile in the ranks, leaving his black stain as war paint across our family flesh.
Heritage is my sister separated at birth and thrown into a cleaner surrounding but leaving this site more barren than before.
Heritage is not a thing to acknowledge here but a thing needing scrubbing as bacon grease in an oven, as sketches drawn on test paper, as wine on virgin cloth.
I won't write a family heritage poem, she says,
and yet it breathes - too permanent - in her hollow bones.
I won't write a family heritage poem
but I'll leave these old whispers for those who need not care.
I won't write one for the envy of others passed traditions, for the love festering in their spirit. I won't write one,
I won't.
Elena Salniker Waller: Family History
A name I was given that is derived from Helen, meaning the bright one and
The shining light. Beautiful like Helen of Troy, but I was named after my
Dad’s cousin Helen Greenberg Palkes, who went back to school and got her
Degree. She never gave up her dream of working with kids. I always stand
Proudly alongside her although she is no longer here, but I will always try
To let her legacy live on inside of me years later. She never let anyone deter
Her from what she was meant to do just because she was a woman ahead of
Her time. Her son Henry told me this story of Helen making a kid stop crying
In a grocery store when she had a lollipop. The same woman who introduced
Quality family time at the dinner table and had a heart full with so much love
For other people, regardless of age, gender or race. An angel with an undying
Love for someone she never got a chance to meet and I am seed she produced.
My dad’s family name that goes back many generations and we cannot ignore
Its history or bloodshed like when his family narrowly escaped the Holocaust.
They came to this country for a better and new life. They planted the seed for
Prosperity and the next generation of Salnikers to live a life they never crossed
Like a bridge. Some of them never seeing anything, but death and hopelessness.
They emerged from danger, knowing that when they make it to the other side
Of the world the pieces will heal from this world’s brokenness and sadness.
A name which is sewn together like a beautifully interwoven tapestry, rich with
So much history and strong family pride. A name etched into stone and concrete.
#heritage
The shining light. Beautiful like Helen of Troy, but I was named after my
Dad’s cousin Helen Greenberg Palkes, who went back to school and got her
Degree. She never gave up her dream of working with kids. I always stand
Proudly alongside her although she is no longer here, but I will always try
To let her legacy live on inside of me years later. She never let anyone deter
Her from what she was meant to do just because she was a woman ahead of
Her time. Her son Henry told me this story of Helen making a kid stop crying
In a grocery store when she had a lollipop. The same woman who introduced
Quality family time at the dinner table and had a heart full with so much love
For other people, regardless of age, gender or race. An angel with an undying
Love for someone she never got a chance to meet and I am seed she produced.
My dad’s family name that goes back many generations and we cannot ignore
Its history or bloodshed like when his family narrowly escaped the Holocaust.
They came to this country for a better and new life. They planted the seed for
Prosperity and the next generation of Salnikers to live a life they never crossed
Like a bridge. Some of them never seeing anything, but death and hopelessness.
They emerged from danger, knowing that when they make it to the other side
Of the world the pieces will heal from this world’s brokenness and sadness.
A name which is sewn together like a beautifully interwoven tapestry, rich with
So much history and strong family pride. A name etched into stone and concrete.
#heritage
Written by eswaller
Go To Page
History Shrouded in Mystery
With my father gone I turn to his brothers,
But with their diaspora they’re hard to find,
Obtaining a family history shrouded in mystery,
My name seems lost in the echoes of time.
My maternal grandmother tells me what she knows,
About days of old and how her family came to be,
About times before electricity and motorized machines,
But still some parts in history are shrouded in mystery.
She tells the tale of her father (opting out a few details),
During the old war and how poverty hit the countryside,
As if there is some shame, a secret to the family name,
Shrouded in mystery as if something are still kept inside.
She tells me of her mother, a hard working woman,
Who had lost her lust on life and took it out on her,
About the suffering she experienced growing up,
A mystery that eighty years later still causes a stir.
Like the time ‘ma Maria began to lose her mind,
Why six of her children died before two years old,
Or ‘pa’s illness seemed like an evil curse taking his soul,
A mystery that should never ever be told.
Grandma gives me snippets of her life’s story,
The grim and gory details of her formative years,
Why ‘ma Maria seemed to have no love for anyone,
The times grandma was beaten but never shed a tear.
My family’s history is covered in pain and mystery,
Especially when the civil war separated many of them,
It’s a puzzle that for years I’ve been trying solve,
Even in the dark passages of murder and mayhem.
But I take pride in Grandma Emma’s love and resilience,
How her adoptive family fought and they raised her right,
Then she raised her children and grandchildren with true north,
Telling us to never lose faith and never lose sight.
With my father gone I turn to his brothers,
But with their diaspora they’re hard to find,
Obtaining a family history shrouded in mystery,
My name seems lost in the echoes of time.
My maternal grandmother tells me what she knows,
About days of old and how her family came to be,
About times before electricity and motorized machines,
But still some parts in history are shrouded in mystery.
She tells the tale of her father (opting out a few details),
During the old war and how poverty hit the countryside,
As if there is some shame, a secret to the family name,
Shrouded in mystery as if something are still kept inside.
She tells me of her mother, a hard working woman,
Who had lost her lust on life and took it out on her,
About the suffering she experienced growing up,
A mystery that eighty years later still causes a stir.
Like the time ‘ma Maria began to lose her mind,
Why six of her children died before two years old,
Or ‘pa’s illness seemed like an evil curse taking his soul,
A mystery that should never ever be told.
Grandma gives me snippets of her life’s story,
The grim and gory details of her formative years,
Why ‘ma Maria seemed to have no love for anyone,
The times grandma was beaten but never shed a tear.
My family’s history is covered in pain and mystery,
Especially when the civil war separated many of them,
It’s a puzzle that for years I’ve been trying solve,
Even in the dark passages of murder and mayhem.
But I take pride in Grandma Emma’s love and resilience,
How her adoptive family fought and they raised her right,
Then she raised her children and grandchildren with true north,
Telling us to never lose faith and never lose sight.
