Dominican Junior Gracie Bott Among NEHS Poetry Contest Winners

St. Mary’s Dominican High School junior Gracie Bott was among the winners of the National English Honor Society (NEHS) sponsored December Poetry Challenge based on the theme of “Friendship.” Students and advisors from around the country submitted entries.

Bott enjoys writing lyrical works in her free time. She also journals and writes speeches and reflections for her position as a Student Preacher.

The NEHS, founded and sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, is the only international organization exclusively for high school students and faculty who, in the field of English, merit special note for past and current accomplishments. Members of Dominican’s Veritas Chapter of the NEHS must have a 3.75 average in English and a 3.5 GPA. Dominican’s moderators are Charlene Ford and Kristin Thomas.

NEHS began a “poetry challenge” creative writing project to encourage and promote more writing. All NEHS members, students and advisors, are encouraged to submit poems from October through April of the current school year. Each month, members of the NEHS Advisory Council and Central Office personnel read and select the best of the entries. The best submissions are published through its social media outlets and collected in an online poetry journal. In May, two “poets of the year,” one from student members and one from NEHS Advisors, will be selected from the monthly winners; those two poets will each receive a $150 award and a certificate of achievement as accomplished NEHS Poets.

Warm Weather

By Gracie Bott

How reliable is a quilt
With its warmth being love
The fabric woven of joy
And with loyalty sewn thereof

The coldest days are those
Which we most need the cover
We pull out our warmest quilt
And we wrap ourselves together

Two cold beings in a moment
But join together furthermore
To create a sort of warmth
Not in existence just before

It is here the beauty arises
When the two come together
A blanket and a person
In a sudden warm the other

Now, is this unlike a friendship?
Two people sooner alone
Come together in a moment
To bring a warmth before unknown

In each other they will find
A mysterious content
And out of seemingly thin air
A warmth then will present

A warmth not there before
From where we do not know
In which we cannot see
And without we wish not go