Arts & Entertainment

New High School Poet of the Year to be Honored Sunday

Meghan Jusczak will be honored at a Newtown campus poetry reading Sunday April 21. She'll be joined by runners-up and finalists in a celebration of young poets from across Bucks County.

Meghan Jusczak, a senior at Central Bucks East High School, has been named the 2013 Bucks County High School Poet of the Year, Bucks County Community College officials announced. The Doylestown resident rose to the top of 145 entries to win the 26th annual contest, part of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program administered by the college.  

Jusczak, who was named third-runner-up last year, won a $300 prize and will be honored at a Newtown campus poetry reading at 3 p.m. Sunday.

She’ll be joined by runners-up and finalists in a celebration of young poets from across Bucks County. An anthology containing the winning poems and a poem from each entrant, Writes of Passage Vol. 3, will be distributed to those in attendance.

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An avid writer, Jusczak is also a newspaper columnist for the “Reality” teen section published weekly in the Intelligencer and Bucks County Courier Times. She’s also active in theater productions at CB East. Her poem “Girl Passing Through” was also named a top ten winner in the summer 2012 national poetry contest held by Creative Communication, a company devoted to promoting student writing.   

She was inspired to write “Girl Passing Through” after watching the movie My Week with Marilyn, Jusczak told Creative Communication’s “Poetic Power” blog.

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“[I was] thinking about how Marilyn Monroe, this famous female symbol, was extremely lonely and dependent on the romantic relationships in her life,” said Jusczak. “The whole poem stemmed out of this image I had in my head of her reapplying her lipstick, and I began to think about my very different approach to relationships and life in general.”

Contest judges were the current and most recent Bucks County Poets Laureate, Lara Adams Gaydos (2012) and Corie Feiner (2011).

The judges also chose three runners-up. They are CB East senior Danielle Dyal of Furlong, first runner-up; William Tennent sophomore Julie Uchitel of Upper Southampton, second runner-up; and George School senior Jacki Applebaum of Holland, third runner-up.

Professor Charlie Groth, who runs the contest as part of the Bucks County Poet Laureate program, said she was once again amazed by the scope of talented writers the contest attracted.

“In the three years since I've started running this program, I've enjoyed seeing how many students show courage by entering year after year,” she said. “Some of them are named finalists more than once, which shows real potential as a solid poet.”

The April 21 High School Poet of the Year reading and reception takes place in the Orangery on the campus at 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown, Pa. Admission and parking are free.

Girl Passing Through     

I’m wondering if it’s possible for a girl ever to be just on her own  

Because I can think of plenty of old artist men holed up in shacks

Breathing lead paint, but even the women that

Seem to have entire plumes of feathers instead of hair

Even they get married eventually, and most of them divorce only to remarry,

And that's how they're free, that's how they're independent,

Because they may be unattached but never are they alone

Never did Marilyn Monroe clandestinely reapply her lipstick

With no one to go to bed to.

So—

Am I crazy?

Because in so many ways, I don’t want it,

And I mean not ever,

The slippers and the plaid bathrobes and

The arguments over paint swatches

(Because yes, they’re important—

That's the side I'm supposed to take).

Should I lie in my bathtub chanting hymns?

Ready to drown myself just before my mother walks in?

Should I move to a cabin in the Canadian wilderness

Survive on indigenous fish and maybe grow a unibrow?

I'm a menace to society, I think

As you kiss me because all I can do is

Stare at the map above your head, and feel so deeply sorry

That I’ll never be enough for you

Because I don’t have the type of mind that could ever

Stick around in one place.

Meghan Jusczak


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