SJIHM students earn awards for poetry
Neighbors | Submitted.Third place winners in the young adult contest were, from left, (front) Xander Tingler, Ami Slanina, Mateo Santiago, Ella Siembieda; (back) Alyssa Leskovac, John McMullen, Brendan Faloon and Andrew Siemieda.
Neighbors | Submitted .Eighth-grder David Markovitch, author of "Bang," was awarded first place in the young adults authors contest and honorable mention in the 7-9 grade division of the Dome Leone Writing Competition.
Neighbors | Submitted .Second place winners in the young adult contest included, from left, (front) Lily Carlson, Laura Baldado, Ava Shaughnessy; (back) Jacob Shumaker, Daniel McCarthey, Jonathan Saxton and Alyssa Casity. Missing from the photo is Trevor Saxton (third grade) and Glyn Roberts (eighth grade).
Neighbors | Submitted.Winners of the young authors contest were, from left, (front) Joseph Wolfe, Justin Reedy, Elizebeth Jadue, Nathan Leskovac, Travis Saxton; (back) Madeline Moliterno, Cameron Putteet, Venezia Willis and David Markovitch.
St. Joseph Immaculate Heart of Mary students were awarded for their poetry at Youngstown State University at the Young Author’s Contest on May 10.
As an outlet to express themselves, students at St. Joseph Immaculate Heart of Mary School are encouraged to write poetry. While in their homeroom class, students wrote poems following the given form of poetry for the year’s contest, including haiku, pyramid, free verse, couplets diamante and rhyming acrostic.
The poems were submitted to the YSU English department to be judged on originality, creativity and following the prescribed set pattern. YSU graduate students select a first, second and third place winner from each class, kindergarten through eighth grade. Winners from each class are recognized at a SJIHM special assembly where they are presented with a prize and a copy of their individual poems published in a SJIHM Young Authors’ Contest book.
In addition to their school’s contest, students may enter the Dom Leone Writing Competition, which was established to encourage creative literary and artistic expression among elementary and secondary students in the Youngstown area. Leone died of cancer in 1989 at the age of 29. He was a writer who attended both Catholic and public schools in Youngstown and graduated from YSU.
Second-grader Lily Carlson (first place), second-grader Ami Slanina (honorable mention), first-grader Isabella Hartman (honorable mention) and eighth-grader David Markovitch (honorable mention) earned awards in the competition.
Seventh- and eighth-grade students may also submit their poetry to the Creative Communications contest. Their poems compete with students from around the country for prizes and to be published in a nation wide publication. In the years 2006 to 2012, Kathleen Villella’s students were awarded a distinguished writing award for having more than 15 writers qualify for publication each year. This year 26 SJIHM students’ poems have been chosen to be published in the Spring Creative Communication book.