Winners: D214 community arts & writing contest

For 36 years, District 214 has hosted Arts Unlimited, a celebration of visual art, prose and poetry that not only brings out the best student artists of the year, but invites adults in the community to participate as well, in a contest set up alongside the student festival.

On Wednesday, April 11, District 214 will host its 36th annual Arts Unlimited reception, 4-5:30 p.m. at Forest View Educational Center, 2121 S. Goebbert Road, Arlington Heights.

Walk around displays of visual art, a mix of student and community work, while listening to music from small ensembles from the various high schools. The ceremony itself will feature several awards, mixed liberally with student performances.

Receiving awards are:

Ÿ 12 students from each of the six District 214 schools, whose work was selected for the annual Arts Unlimited Anthology magazine. The publication will be available at the reception.

Ÿ Nine winners of the community writing and art contest, co-sponsored by District 214 and the Daily Herald. Anyone high school age and older was eligible to submit pieces.

Ÿ District 214's annual “Friend of the Arts” recipient. This year that distinction goes to Bill Dussling, school board president and tireless advocate for the arts programs in District 214.

Here are the three visual art winners, the three winning short stories and the three top poems from the Community Art and Writing Contest. Enjoy!

1st place, prose

Marjani

By Patricia Brock, Mount Prospect

My mother named me Marjani, which is Swahili for coral. It came to her in a dream when she was on holiday with my father. I write now as I imagine them together. I know the story of course, but the great love between my parents? This I have never seen.

My mother has the gift of sight, an extra sense, a certain knowledge of things to come. It is small. She does not have that direct connection to God or the angels as did Moses or the Prophet Mohammad. Rather, it is a simple thing. A prediction of rain on a cloudless day, a meal planned in advance for a surprise visitor, or the occasional vision of an unexpected death. She also has an uncanny ability to separate honesty from deceit, and I swear to you that it is deadly accurate. Try her sometime. Tell a lie, try to cheat, hide the truth. She will see it. She will know.

Just days before my birth, my parents walked along the white sands of a beach in Massawa. Perhaps they held hands as they talked, their brown fingers laced together into a knot of youthful love. My father hoped for a boy, but this was not to be, and so, in the golden haze of a setting sun, my mother told him about me.

“Mebrahtu,” she began hesitantly, “this baby is a girl.” Then, seeing the frown form, she added quickly, “Be proud. A powerful destiny awaits this child. I have seen it.” She took his hand and put it on her belly. “Feel her kick. She is strong.”

The air was sultry, but a delicate breeze kept the heat at bay as they walked along the sea. She told him her dream then, the vision that came to her in the night. “Our daughter was swimming among coral reefs. Beside her swam luminous fish with fierce beaks, like birds.” She gestured with a thin arm toward the Red Sea. My mother has known famine. She is quite slender. Even now, she scarcely eats.

“She dove beneath rippling waters and the bird-fish followed, gliding between rays of sun which glinted and sparked. Lazily, she floated along a coral garden, in and out among brilliant flowers of bone and rock, and the sharp teeth of the bird-fish smiled as she played.” She shivered then, and my father pulled her close. He listened carefully. Again, I imagine this. I have a right, you know, to be happy inside my head, to see love from my father for my mother and me, to believe in his capacity for it, his ability.

My mother continued. “Suddenly, the fish began to chew on the tender coral with strong jaws that scraped and crushed the delicate bone flowers. Grains of pink and purple sand flowed from their beaks, like blood, and caught in nets of weed. Soon, it was our daughter in their teeth and slowly, she too was crushed. Her flesh became sand and mingled with the starfish and seashells to form a pattern, a mandala, on the bottom of the sea.”

I imagine that my father pulled her into his arms and reassured her with soft words. He agreed that I should be called Marjani, and promised to protect me. I know she extracted that promise, even as she had that small gift of prophecy that likely told her otherwise.

By now you must be wondering. What did the mandala mean? Is this Marjani to be a warrior, an Amazon? Or a Phoenix to die in flames and rise up from ashes, reborn? I understand that I have led you to think this. So here I will use the literary device of foreshadowing. Do not look for glorious battles and cheering crowds. Instead, lift up a rock, study the earth, observe the busy insects, and then step on them. This is what happened to me.

On my third birthday, my father took another wife. In my country, this is accepted. Indeed, it is written in the scriptures of many faiths, and the Lord has favored these holy men, but here I must write of the suffering of the women. Birikiti, the second wife, hated us, resented my mother as first wife and used her tongue to create misery. She had three girl babies in four years, and this was a source of great unhappiness. My father is an important man in our village. He would be gone for hours solving intricate problems, and when he spent time in our crowded stone hidmo, he demanded respect. He would use his fists to remind us of his stature, and we were all obedient.

Mostly, my father beat his wives, but I felt those knuckles occasionally when I tried to defend my mother. After a time, I earned my own fists. A dish dropped, a slow response to a request. We all felt them as we grew older. Once, he became so angry with Birikiti that he kicked her several times in the stomach. She bled for a week after that, and no more babies came. My father now had a house of women.

When I was twelve, my father arranged a marriage for me. I was cooking injera, the bread of my country. Quietly, I stopped to listen. “She will have to be stitched,” he said warily, glancing sideways at my mother. “My daughter will not dishonor this family like a dog in heat.”

“Mebrahtu, no,” my mother protested. “You promised, the day on the beach.”

He glanced at me and I studied his face, searching his eyes for love, for kindness, but they were empty. He left without speaking, and did not look back. I went on with my work. What else could I do? I was, as always, obedient.

Two days later, I lay sprawled in the dirt under a blazing sun. Not even a rag was between me and the earth. Birikiti held my arms. Abeba, the old midwife, clutched a razor. The sun sparked on the gleaming silver. My mother was there, and my sisters. They held me still. My legs were stretched wide as Abeba bent over me, her hand with the razor between my legs. She cut me and the pain, the pain was unbearable. It filled me, and I screamed. My mother stroked my face as I wept while blood ran down my legs. My woman parts mingled with the soil, feeding the worms as I watched Abeba put the razor aside. Birkiti gave her a needle and thread and I was sewn together. At last I fainted. When I woke I was on fire. I saw the mandala, the pattern of my life. I understood.

Shall I tell you of the days that followed? The burn of urine when it passes through torn flesh? The weeks of fever? The difficulty I experienced trying to walk? The menstrual blood that would not pass as Abeba left the opening too small? No, I will spare you the details. Who among you does not have the wisdom that arises upon suffering and pain?

Instead, let me tell you of my destiny. After the circumcision, I was close to death. I had an infection. This was during a time of hunger in my village. One day United Nations trucks came with relief for my people; big bags of potatoes, onions, and flour. The driver was a woman called Jessika Chretien. She spoke Tigrinya, the language of my people. My mother brought Jessika to me where I lay on a makeshift bed of rags, and showed her my wounds. I remember her tears. She called to the men with the truck and they took me to a hospital. Jessika Chretien paid for my doctors.

My mother and I never went back to our village. It was the dream that gave her strength. We spent two years in refugee camps until we were sponsored by a wealthy family in Wilmette, and today I attend high school and speak English. I will never have children as I was damaged by infection, and I have grown in wisdom beyond my classmates, but they make me happy. They laugh and talk of things of such little importance that my heart is light at times, and I laugh with them. I don't forget, however, that I am a flower of bone, that I have been crushed into a pattern of sand so beautiful, so essential, that today I am transformed. I too, have a gift now. It came to me here in America, where they taught me to read. I am a writer.

Some day, I will go back to Africa, but this time I will bring my gift. I will find women and tell you their stories, and educate them. Just as one seed will start a garden, so too can one word change the world. I have that word, and I will make people listen. I am strong. I am the Phoenix. I am Marjani.

1st place, poetry

The Lake

By Katie Björnson, Buffalo Grove

What is a lake?

But a door

to an alternate universe

a world

where the sun

is cooler

where the people walk down

and fall up

here in this universe

where the fish walk the skies

and the people can walk to the edge of the world

and touch the stars

by bending down

2nd place, prose

Continuum

By Tabinda Bashir, Rolling Meadows

Little Hassan sat in his mother's lap as she fed him bits of apple. He was the baby bird and she, the mother bird. Ayesha did say now and then, “Hassan, you are a big boy, you should eat by yourself.” But the love in her eyes belied her words.

It was one of those idyllic, quiet mornings that come occasionally in a house with three boisterous, pampered children. Breakfast was done, though the smell of toast and coffee still hung in the air on that sunny autumn day. The table still had to be cleared and the toys strewn around had to be picked up. The day was just yawning awake.

Hassan's Dad had gone to the office. Sisters, Mona and Zara were in their room playing music, painting their nails and doing all such important things that girls do on a day when there is no school.

Grandpa Hashim sat in his room in an armchair warming his feet in the long patch of sunlight coming through the window. He stared out at the sky with vacant eyes. His days had become much longer since his wife Zainab's death. He tried hard, but he could not remember what it was that had kept them busy. They lived with his son, showered his children with love and gifts, enjoyed their pranks and never realized how quickly days went by. But what had happened now that time almost stood still? He missed Zainab. She had filled his days.

Unaware of how long he had been sitting there, he turned his head to look at the timepiece on the bedside table. He had better take a shower, he thought. That would give him something to do. Then he could sit with the children and maybe play some games. He pondered some more, then slowly with hands on his aching back, got up and went to the closet to take out some clothes. Zainab used to put his clothes for the day out on the bed. She matched colors beautifully. He selected the shirt that she had bought for him shortly before she fell ill and smiled as he decided to wear a pair of old jeans in which she said he looked like a circus clown and never told him why. As he opened the shirt, a loose button fell in his hand. This had never happened before; he didn't remember seeing a loose button. Not sure of what to do about it, he looked around and noticed that the oblong patch of sunlight had shrunk. It was close to lunchtime. He better hurry.

He went to the dining room and asked Ayesha, “Please stitch this button back so that I can have my shower. I am sorry to ask you. Zainab used to take care of all such things.”

He was taken aback when she snapped, “Don't you see I am busy with Hassan? I hope you are well aware that in these formative years he needs special attention. It is Hassan who has to be spoon fed, not you.”

Mr. Hashim laughed, “But he is four. He can run around and does not need to be fed like a baby. Aren't you a big boy, Hassan?”

Hassan tried to go to his Grandpa but his mother pulled him back, “Oh no, you sit right here. And Father, why don't you bring your things when I am less busy? You know my routine for the day. I don't even get time to breathe. You can ask Mona or Zara if any of them will do it. They told me they were going to be very busy with their schoolwork. Maybe they can spare some time for you.”

Hassan looked at his mother and stopped her hand as it came to feed him. He jumped from her lap and went and stood next to his Grandpa.

Shirt in one hand and button in the other, Mr. Hashim slowly proceeded toward the girls' room with Hassan in tow. The girls were almost invisible in a rainbow of colors, with stuffed animals piled and hung in every available space. At full volume, Lady Gaga blocked all other sounds. Their writing table was covered with cosmetics of all kinds and the pungent smell of the nail polish remover made it difficult to breathe.

Hassan stood close to Grandpa's legs as he looked from one sister to the other. Mr. Hashim said, “Mona, please stitch this button on my shirt so that I can shower before lunch. Your mother is busy or she would have done it.”

Mona paused in her nail filing, lowered the volume of the CD player, spread out her hands, opened her eyes big and said incredulously, “And I am not … busy? I am like … doing my schoolwork; don't you see all those books spread out on the bed? Or is your vision gone too? OK, I will do it when I am done with my studies. And besides, you are in no great hurry, like you have to go to the office or something?”

Lady Gaga came back on and she went back to her nails.

Hassan clutched his Grandpa's pajama leg with one hand and put the other thumb in his mouth.

Before Grandpa could say anything to Zara, she rolled her eyes and blurted, “I am the younger one you know, and I don't even know how to stitch.” Then she whispered something in Mona's ear and they both giggled.

With his head bent, Mr. Hashim almost dragged his feet as he went out in the veranda and sat on one of the wooden armchairs. He stared at the shirt in his lap and rolled the button in his hand absent-mindedly. When Zainab was alive until just a few days ago, they had never been treated like this. He and his wife had doted on the family and thought they got love in return. What happened?

Still sucking his thumb, Hassan came close to the chair and put his head next to Grandpa's shoulder. Mr. Hashim pensively stroked his hair.

He sat there for what seemed to be a long time. Then he gathered the shirt, walked back to his room and sat down on the bed. Hassan wrapped his arms around Grandpa's knee, rested his head on it and kept sucking his thumb.

Mr. Hashim got his wife's sewing box from the night table and tried to thread a needle. No matter how hard he tried, by taking the needle away or close to his eyes, he just couldn't do it. The more he concentrated, the more his hands trembled. After some time he gave up, put the needle and thread back, closed the box and stared out the window.

Hassan looked at him for a long while. Then, raising his head close to Grandpa's ear, he whispered “Grandpa, let's go out to the swings.”

Mr. Hashim looked at Hassan and smiled as if he had just become aware of his presence. He kissed him on the cheek. Hassan smiled back, held Grandpa's knotty tremulous finger in his chubby hand and led him out to the lawn.

2nd place, poetry

Where I'm From

By Amanda Faust, Rolling Meadows

I am the parallel slats of hickory floors.

From the suede pillows and fire-red brick fireplace.

I am from the noise in the neighborhood:

dogs barking, kids yelling, the loud hum of the lawnmower down the block.

I am from the overgrown oak tree,

whose leaves cover the dead grass of fall

in a collage of colors.

I am from fresh-cut fruit and old Good Housekeeping magazines.

From Pine-Sol and burning wood.

I am from the treat-others-the-way-you-would-like-to-be-treated,

and don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover.

I am from let-me-call-you-sweetheart, and soft sung songs on old lips.

And the Hail Mary's I did not yet know the words to.

I am from the small sanctuary and the 3-bedroom house.

Kolachke cookies and Great-Grandma's recipes.

I am from the sacrifices my parents made for their family,

the words they spoke and the changes they made.

In the carved wood box was a pearl necklace,

one of my Grandma's own.

My Grandfather's gold wristwatch with the second hand that no longer ticks —

although I can still hear it.

And a picture of the three of us, when I was young.

Two people gone now,

one of them living for them, from them,

in their never-ending love.

3rd place, prose

The Next Day

By Simon Campos, Wheeling

It was the brisk Saturday morning that woke me up.  The chillingly crisp atmosphere tickled the hair on my arms all the way up to the back of my neck as I sat up and stretched. I leisurely rolled over to the left and reached out onto the nightstand, groping for my glasses, and then extended my torso over the edge of the mattress in order to retrieve my laptop. “Dead,” I muttered to myself as I opened the device and found myself staring at a blank screen. Stumbling to the kitchen to fix myself a pot of coffee, I rubbed my bleary eyes and opened them to find the power adapter tangled in an s-shape on the sandy-brown carpet. After quickly going back and tossing it onto my bed, I measured out two tablespoons of Starbucks coffee grounds and a cup and a half of filtered water, dumped them in the machine, hit the red switch, and watched the coffee percolate. Java and Java, just like every other weekend morning.

I slammed the aluminum commuter cup on the nightstand and wiped the coffee off my lip with the back of my arm just as Eclipse finished booting up.  My fingers instantly took a mind of their own, kind of resembling the legs of a spider as I picked up where I left off and initialized the heading of the GUI class.  I blindly reached for the navy-blue handle of the commuter cup and brought the rim to my lips as Eclipse compiled the visual-based objective framework.  My digits started to get their workout as I submitted line after line of the guts of the GUI. I felt that same tingle in my right pinky as I hit the semicolon key followed by the enter key, a moderately large distance to skip in proportion with my other fingers in home row.

“Import-Java-dot-util-dot-scanner-semicolon-enter!” I whispered to myself enthusiastically, as if my hands were controlled by verbal command.  I opened a bracket and declared the main method and tried not to think about Arielle.

The day before didn't have that Friday euphoria as usual — at least for the latter part of the school day. My stomach turned inside itself when I saw Arielle O'Neil in the computer science lab after school. She was one of those students that everyone adored for her popularity and social status in the scholastic hierarchy. And of course, every male student I've conversed with had at some time or another talked about how hot she was.  I've even heard some boys describe her beauty as piercing — which is quite fitting because she used that as a weapon to always get what she wanted.  

For a while I just stared at the back of her neck, debating whether or not I should go in and finish the GUI lab. I imagined myself looking like a cat fascinated by a ball of yarn as I unconsciously zoned in on her ponytail, watching the curly bunch of hair sway back and forth as she held her cellphone up to her ear and made gestures with her left hand. She was probably spreading more gossip about me to Annie or Lia, reiterating how I had “stalked her that one time.” Crossing her legs, she swiveled her chair a bit to the left and yawned, patting the top of her head as if she were checking if her hair hadn't fallen out. Then she fell into the Arielle pose: she cocked her head to the left, rested her elbow on her thigh, and stuck her cheek on her fist, as if they were magnetically attracted. That pose always disgusted me — the way she was positioned was just crying out woe is me, look how hard life is for me, blah blah blah.

I snapped out of the trance and just as I was about to forget it and turn around, she caught my face peering in the lab through the corner of her eye. She had finally found her reason to get me in trouble.

“You are now running on reserve battery power,” screamed my computer, waking me from my daydream. I looked to the ground and saw that the power adapter had become unplugged somehow. Unfortunately I have a nasty habit of setting things down in the least responsible of places and forgetting about them, but this was the first time with coffee.  Yes, it was placed next to me on the bed.  As I fished for the cord with my foot, I jolted when I felt a warm liquid wet my back — but I was too late. Coffee had spilled everywhere; the comforter, the mattress, the sheets, my pajamas — but worse, my laptop appeared to be ruined.

I immediately sprang off the bed and ran to the kitchen to retrieve something, anything, to somehow soak up the coffee and salvage the computer, though I felt slightly idiotic returning with only a dried out yellow sponge.  I scrubbed the aluminum shell of the computer and pressed the sponge hard against the keyboard, hoping that it would magically absorb even an ounce of moisture, but my efforts were to no avail.

I went to wake up my mother so that she would bring me and my laptop to the store to see if they could do anything at all to repair it.  She was curled up in her blankets, sleeping peacefully and I was a bit reluctant to ruin one of the few days she was able to sleep in. “Mom?” I said softly. “Mom, I spilled coffee on my laptop and I need you to--”

“Oh, come on!” my mother replied.  “I get up at the crack of dawn almost every day of the year, but the one day I get to sleep in -- “

“Please don't yell — I'm sure that you as my own mother know better than anyone else how much more I can handle,” I gently replied.  A concerned look washed over her face.

“Handle what?”

“Life.” I bit my lip and looked at the ground. I felt a tear forming on the bottom of my left eyelid.  My mom gave a heavy sigh.

“I'll get the car started.”

I watched the brisk Saturday morning out the window of the car. The shell of the laptop rested beneath my left arm.  At first it was almost too cold to touch, but I eventually I got used to it. “I'm sorry,” I blurted out to my mother. At first it seemed like she was ignoring me, but I could tell she was only thinking of what to say when she sighed.

“It's not your fault,” she assured me. I moved my face to make eye contact with her. “You did nothing wrong.” I craned my neck back to the right and returned to peering out the window.

“Do you think she still --”

“I'm sure she still does, honey.  Deep down inside.”

3rd place, poetry

Whispered Waves

By Allison Gourley, Arlington Heights

I could write a poem only you would understand. A parked car on an empty street, an iPod on shuffle, the lyrics drifting through the speakers,

forcing our life to become a soap-opera. Your glasses forever crooked on your nose.   A single light bulb shadowing that muggy room, retainers forever messing with our speech. Whispered secrets only we can know stringing together with the sound of soft waves

Lapping steadily on the river rocks. In the end it would just be about sweatpants and a rock holding its ground.