A year after asking readers to reflect on the coronavirus pandemic for KidsPost’s annual poetry contest, we decided that a more uplifting theme is in order this year. So we asked kids, ages 6 to 14, to help us mark National Poetry Month 2022 by writing short, original poems about spring. The writers of the nearly 350 poems we received focused on images, emotions and experiences. Some poems were laser-focused; others were broad, like written landscape paintings. Many expressed hope and joy, but some reflected disappointment and annoyance (we hear you, allergy sufferers). Their creativity and well-chosen words delighted the judges, who selected 10 poems to highlight. Those poets will receive a prize package that includes Kwame Alexander’s “Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets” or Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Jabberwalking.” We hope that the verses published here will inspire other readers to express themselves — on spring or any other topic — through the art of poetry.
Kids’ poems reveal the promises and pains of springtime
10 original poems were chosen from nearly 350 that kids submitted for the KidsPost Poetry Contest.
The Ballad of Spring
While Winter cackles at Earth’s rim
Spring creeps up at the back of him
Interrupting a freezing blow
“Make room for herbs to grow!”
Sprinkling seeds into the soil
While the sun and water toil
Forcing the winter snow away
“Come back frost another day!”
Twirling with her little dance
Continuing she does a prance
Freeing greenery from the snow
And causing tiny sprouts to grow.
Now the flowers are growing high.
“Come my friends, I say, arise!
After Winter’s windy days
It’s finally time for us to play!”
— Noah Xia, age 9, Fort Lee, New Jersey
Bluebird
I roost dusk to dawn in the calm, silent tree
Then chirp to fend off the rivalry.
Head under wing, wing brightest blue.
This old, gallant nest
Has seen the year through.
— Holly Scott, 10, Fairfax Station, Virginia
Seasonal Pain
People always say that spring is the best
Since they’re eager to escape their warm winter vest.
But I know the truth, yes I speak it with ease:
“Spring is the wor-” but it’s interrupted by a sneeze!
The room fills with a chorus of “bless-you,”
Yet this congested feeling still leaves me quite blue.
I’m at Spring’s mercy to do what it may please,
Oh, curse you, Spring, for giving me allergies!
— Zadie Maness, 13, Charlottesville, Virginia
The Season of Change
Seeds once dormant
Now peeking up from the ashes
Trees start with seeds
Rivers with rain drops
Change with one voice
Love created with a word
A song starts with a note
One sign one voice
A march on Washington
May May be the sprouting of good
Have March be a march for our future
May spring bring the awakening
Let us be the seeds of song
The rain drops of change
The sprout that started a forest
Let it spread like a mighty wave
Love, peace, and justice
Let us be the seeds
— Emerson Miller Gabriel, 10, Washington, D.C.
Bells
Spring
The bells that ring
Signaling
The end
The end of all our troubles
The end of all the harshness
Somehow
Closing down the darkness
But why
Why do we use this analogy?
Using spring
To spring ourselves forward into motion
Creating new notions of our world
Lying to ourselves, with all our might
Watching the birds take their flight
Humans are scavengers
we scavenge for light
And spring is that righteous adventure
And spring helps that light
Gleam bright
What does spring mean to me?
It’s the melody
That we sing
When there are no other
Bells to ring.
— Alice Frank, 11, New York, New York
Yes!
My yes day
would be like pure sunlight outside.
It would be chaos in the house.
I would go to the beach,
the ocean would be waving, and saying hi.
there would be music playing in the park
and it would be a springtime Saturday evening.
Birds would chirp and my body would be filled with happiness.
— Gerome Wood, 11, Washington, D.C.
Sunshine Youth
There is hope in the air
The plants killed by winter are now resurrected
Life is now among us
Walking home from school
It’s easy to believe that the world turns so much happier,
Seeing the animals all reunite.
When the sun illuminates it,
The beauty of the world is evident.
The days are short,
Yet the time that I spend outside
Admiring the world on my second hand bike
Reminds me that I still have time to be young.
— Olayinka Osinowo, 14, Glassboro, New Jersey
Memories of a Dandelion
As I sit
in a field of grass
I see a dandelion
on the ground.
I pick it up and blow.
As the flakes
fly all around,
I begin to think,
does each flake
represent a memory
in the life of a dandelion?
I don’t know what memories
the dandelion might have,
but I think of my own
spring memories,
like when I was at Disney.
I thought I saw the
Easter Bunny.
I remember all the hikes
with my dad.
Spring flies by
and sometimes the small moments
are bigger than anything else.
— Finn Howard, 11, Alexandria, Virginia
The Playfulness of Spring
Spring
The season of thinkers
Dreamers
And inventors
It sets the stage for
New beginnings
A fresh slate
For all things extraordinary
And the time when
Extraordinary things happen so often
They become ordinary
Spring comes like a thief
Slowly, quietly
Biding her time
Noticed not by
A dramatic entrance
But gradual introductions
And before you know it
Spring
Has made herself known
— Redeat Yiesak, 12, Silver Spring, Maryland
The Inbetween
The inbetween.
Blurred lines, daffodils,
Another frost.
The sun shines bright
One morning, clouds fill the sky,
And rain pours from above the next.
Each day changes,
Shorts to pants to skirts and back again.
Spring doesn’t know how to make up its mind,
Straddling the line between winter and summer.
Spring tries to be its own season,
Its own personality, distinct traits.
No matter how hard it tries,
Spring is not its own.
Controlled by other forces,
The changing climate,
The melting glaciers and deforestation.
Spring will fade,
Oblivion will overtake it.
Spring will disappear,
Dissolve,
Melt.
— Elizabeth Cook, 13, Charlottesville