The Madison Review: Young Authors of Promise Contest Winners

The Madison Review presenting: The First Annual Young Authors of Promise Contest Winners

Each year The Madison Review offers an opportunity to students in high schools across Dane County to enter their creative writing to our journal with the hopes of a monetary prize and publication. The following pieces were accepted in the First Annual Young Author’s Contest.

Selin Gok submitted these works as a senior at James Madison Memorial High School. Their prize and publication is in the Poetry category.

Ellie Turkamin submitted their work as a fourteen year old attending Madison County Day School. Their prize and publication is in the Personal Essay Category.

Ellie Turkamin Change

After a while you learn how to handle things. You learn how to live better by avoiding the bad moments and soaking yourself in the good ones. In my case, I am a master at avoiding confrontation. I have learned over the years that most unpleasant things are temporary, and the best way to get through them is to suck it up for the time being. At home when I am asked to do something, I say, “okay,” and do it, even if I don’t want to, because I know that doing something I don't want to is better than a heated argument whether it be with my parents or my sister. The only flaw with this strategy is that, like unpleasant things, the ability to keep everything inside you is also temporary. People naturally want a say in what they do. The technique of sucking it up works miraculously when you don’t have to do it continuously- Breaks are required to remain sane. Where you spend those breaks tends to be your “home” or where you feel most comfortable. My break is at my school, Madison Country Day. MCDS has become a home to me. I love my literal home and my family, but because we love each other so much, it is easier to get upset with one another. The stress of not knowing when an argument could occur has led me to be so paranoid as to go through the precautions of building a shield to protect myself from confrontation. My routine after every day after school is to come home, get a snack, do my homework, eat dinner, do the dishes, and then go to my room and read or talk to friends. I put space between myself and possible arguments. If I’m not with my sister, I can’t get upset with her. When I am with my family I act as if I am perfect (which I

am definitely not). I admit I’m wrong and apologize even if I don’t actually believe it and I agree to do anything I’m asked because, as I stated before, unpleasant things are only temporary and I can live through it. This is the shield I am forced to build, and now that it’s up I can never remove it. At school I take down my shield. I allow myself to argue my thoughts and opinions.

This is a twisted way of thinking of a home, however, my happiest place is a place where people like me, but do not love me, because being loved is very scary and for now I cannot take the pressure.

Of course, when I first came to MCDS it was not automatically my home. When I arrived people avoided me in the halls and I never sat with my grade at lunch. I sat at the peanut free table, at the side of the Pod, with a few kids from other grades and quietly ate my food. I had to push through every day for the first couple weeks. All of the stress I felt has nothing to do with our school. The problem is that I have a low tolerance for change. Although I seem very outgoing and energetic, inside I am painfully shy. I always worry about what everyone else will think of me and go to any length to try not to stand out, to stay hidden in the background. I am afraid of change. When everything is going well, why make anything different?

When I first arrived in sixth grade, everyone had their friends or was fantastic at making new ones. The kids were nice and I wasn’t mean or unfriendly (on purpose anyways), I just didn’t want to make any mistakes. So with some effort I got the title “weird girl”. I always loved this name because it excused all abnormal behavior. I remember the second week of school, sitting by Mrs. Jones at the front desk, with all my stuff packed into my backpack and ready to go. My mom came through the door, obviously not happy that she had to miss work to come get me because I was “sick” again. During that car ride home my mom asked me if I was doing okay and I reassured her I was. She then told me that was the last time she could pick me up early.

Once it sunk in that having my mom take me away from school everyday wasn’t going to work, I sat in the back and occasionally made some weird comment in order to keep my label. It was hard to never tell anyone about how alone I felt, but at the time I thought I had no other choice.

This is the reason that I am very social with the new kids because I know what it’s like being the strange new person and will do anything to make it easier for those people. This year, when the new ninth graders came, I was sure to introduce myself and have them memorize my name. On the bus ride to the ninth grade retreat, I sat in front of two of the new boys and would constantly turn around and ask them questions about their old school and about books and other random topics. I’m sure they thought I was strange or really perky, but I felt like I had to do anything to make them fit in and feel comfortable, even though they probably could have done well on their own.

The year after sixth grade everything changed, although I still don't know why. I had tons of friends and didn’t thrive off low expectations. Madison Country Day has taught me that making friends is not easy, but worth the effort. Once you make friends at this school you can never get rid of them and won’t want to. Everyday I’m surrounded by people who support me through everything, who ask if I’m feeling okay every time I look the slightest bit upset, who help me with homework at the least convenient times, who come with me to ask for microphones in the musical because I’m too afraid to go by myself, and who carry my stuff for me after I fall at the bottom of the stairs because “they’re afraid I’m going to hurt someone”. Although I had rough spots in the beginning, it was only my own fault. I expected others to come to me and become my friends, but having friends isn’t a given, it’s something you have to work for.

Not many people even remember what I was like in sixth grade and will say that they liked me just as much as they do now, but trust me, it isn’t true. Whatever secret change

happened and tried to go undetected, I noticed. I changed for the better. People in movies and books and even parents and teachers tell children not to change and to always be yourself, but this is awful advice. What they mean to say is don’t change in a way that makes you unhappy.

Feeling a little uncomfortable at first is okay, but if you were your unchanged self and saw the person you became, would you hate yourself? I am far happier with the person I am now than I was before and everyone else around me seems to be as well. I am still afraid of change, but I am not ungrateful that I did so.

Through all these changes I have been supported by my friends at school. Even though I do filter myself at school, it isn’t nearly as much as I do at home. Doing everything I am asked sets a high bar that being myself doesn’t reach. At school I feel free to act as the person I am now and want to be, a funny, somewhat strange, energetic, and outgoing person. Although this is who I am now due to my home, my old self comes out in places without my friends or within me. My school and friends bring out the best me and that is why they are my home.

Selin Gok Wheels in Motion

May 4th, 1961 Thirteen booming revolutions with a map to freedom etched on their skin Armed with nonviolence, their weapon of choice And a craving for melting pot minus the hegemony Like transparent tattoos, six white and seven black become one On one gallant Greyhound through the Southern breeze Thirteen messiahs cut down their poplar trees

May 14th, 1961 Two hundred bigots raised on Forsyth garbage A mob malnourished of humanity and filled with hatred Bring crowbar to glass in the name of Jim Crow And racist Alabamian tradition Just a broken clock refusing to move forward “Where is the gas? Where is the gas?�

Nothing but black chaos and smoke A pastoral scene of the twisted mouth The coughing lungs and the wicked south Can you hear the loud burning of metal and faith?

Can you feel the hot sidewalk blood dripping from disaster?

Or the broken flesh and maimed strength?

Out of gloom comes an angel With wings of water and hands of love Change is coming, She whispers

May 20th, 1961 The world is watching and if you listen closely You can hear the snickering of judgment America, the land of the free and the home of the brave Viewed as a wasteland of the enslaved controlled by systematic oppression Who are we to blame when our own are in chains Public relations specialist, I mean, liar, I mean, coward, I mean, the President Makes a new deal to deal with those so called “freedom” riders

May 24th, 1961 There’s a strange pepto bismol feeling in Mississippi Like a sickly aura wrapped itself around the State There’s an Emmitt Till sadness to this place The riders are locked away Parchman style And through the sounds of wrists snapping, Stomachs roaring, legs bending, and skin burning There’s something spiritual behind these walls And there are no brakes on this movement

Selin Gok Manifest Sheep

O' grandiose institutions of academia Your intangible validation is what I need To assimilate into the masses of sheep To follow your manifest scheme 'Till I decompose in the oak wood desk I'll never leave Like a coffin built to box me six feet under my dreams Chained and shackled to the draining routine I’ve tried hard to dig out of with #2 pencils and universal gratitude As flimsy as the ego of man Your western phenomenon Of prescription drugs, twisted pornography, and tainted salaries To feed the digital stomach of the restless youth And teach me to chew with my eyes and mouth shut So when your shady behaviour is raised like the backwards flag of our forefathers I’ll be choking on your american pie And when I pass away in the name of superficial living, On my tombstone should read: “Here lies a product of consumerism; The daughter, sister, lover, and friend of nothing.”

Selin Gok Strange Boy I have seen you before, stranger Through crowds suffocating under smog vibrations Of Summer, of Augustus, of mighty King Friday I fell for your Hercules smile and Samson locks Tripped over your loose heart strings And made symphonies out of you I have already met you, neighbor Under neon store signs and ivory moonlight Through forgotten names and empty conversation In the kinetic lust of almost-touching thighs And the puff puff pass ritual that dĂŠjĂ vu'ed away artificiality I have found you once again, friend Where my martyr drowned in the name of one love Where the anthem of youth echoed through government palace Where college frat boy met old homeless man Where jazz cats and alcoholic poets birthed masterpieces for a five dollar cover Where smoke shop after smoke shop after smoke shop and bar after bar after bar Where euphoric mania crafted melancholy routine I have known you many times, lover Under tangled bed sheets and noir flashlight Through awkward limbs and childish humor In the perfect position of my head on your chest After midnight kisses and morning breath I have mistaken you for someone, stranger