04.07.2008
Young poet shares award-winning work
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Haley Jones reads some of her poetry Sunday at the Iredell County Public Library. Jim McNally photo |
April, the famed ex-patriot poet T.S. Eliot declared in his seminal work “The Waste Land,” “is the cruelest month.”
At some point since the post-World War I work hit the streets, April became National Poetry Month.
As such, creative writers young and old have dusted off manuscripts, chapbooks and poetry collections and prepared for readings.
April is also the month when poets on stages large and small are honored for their work.
And one such budding wordsmith from Statesville was recently recognized as a recipient of the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series for the western region of North Carolina.
Haley Jones, an eighth-grader at North Iredell Middle School, read her award-winning poetry on Sunday afternoon at the Iredell Public Library.
Haley said poetry offers her an avenue of self-expression.
“I like how you can bring words and ideas together and make things flow from them,” she said - almost poetically - before her reading.
Haley said the inspiration for her poems is boundless.
Topics for the poems she read Sunday included pirates, a baby’s hands, the popular girl at school and the cities of Charleston and Washington.
“I’ve learned to start with a kind of image and then bring in ideas from my family and friends,” she said.
One of those who taught her that method in recent times has been creative writing professor and Queens University’s Poet in Residence Cathy Smith Bowers, who has taken young Haley under her wing.
“She’s a very quick study,” Bowers said. “She is very creative to begin with but also really wants to learn more.”
Smith’s mentoring of Haley was part of the prize the young poet won for her recognition.
Haley said she enjoys writing poetry, but her mother, Eileen, said her daughter’s deeper educational pursuits derive more from the left side of the brain - the logic side - than the right, where the imagination is king.
“She really puts everything she has into whatever she is doing,” Eileen Jones said. “But I think Haley would tell you she likes science best of all.”
Haley said this was not the first time she had been recognized for her writing.
“But it’s the first time I won,” she said.
Libby Campbell, library assistant and a purveyor of poetry, oversaw the reading. She said poetry is an important part of the human condition.
“Poetry helps us give expression to our deepest thoughts and feelings like nothing else can,” Campbell said. “You have to use just the right words.”
Which Haley proved she knows how to do.
‘Hands’ by Haley Jones
Unfolding,
like tiny buds.
New as the day around them.
Growing,
holding a world of pebbles,
water and sand.
Captives in a child’s imagination.
Curious
Growing
Working harder with each day.
Touching
Grasping
Reaching
Holding on to dreams.
Growing,
Aging
Brittle, as the fallen branch.
Finding peace.
Hands