Herricks High School senior Joanna Lau won first place in the International Poetry of Resistance Contest, presented by the Social Justice Club. Her poem, “Between Indigo and Dawn,” was selected out of over 250 submissions from 12 different countries.
After two weeks of review from judges, the top 13 poems were sent to Slam Poetry World Champion Joaquin Zihuatanejo. He shared the following comments regarding Joanna’s entry:
“Here we have a poet who realizes the unit we have to create within poetry is the line. Their lines and line breaks are urgent and full of passion and voice. This poet even understands the concept of how a turn in the poem can be amplified by a line break as in, ‘rounds the corner and sees that the drummer is a child.’ A line that simply floors the reader.”
“Also, this poet’s diction or word choice is stellar. This poet writes like a poet who reads more than they write, like a poet who realizes there is power in what a word means and how a word sounds. The poem has such a fluid and song like sonic quality. It is simply an astonishing poem.”
The SJC’s mission is to nurture the youth’s capacities in the path of building a more just society by thinking and experiencing how each person’s best is achieved in the context of cooperation and caring for one another. Joanna will be awarded a monetary prize for her prominent achievement.
