M e e t t h e W i n n e r s
In 2000 we started interviewing our Grand Prize winners in order to share with everyone their unique stories and talents. We’ve asked them to keep in touch over the years so that we can update these pages with news and photos of their successes and adventures. Even though we didn’t think to interview previous winners in depth when we all met in Washington, DC, as we did with this year’s winners, they are all part of the growing family River of Words family and we’ll be contacting them to request that they, too, keep us updated about themselves.
2000 ROW Grand Prize and Regional Winners
2000 Grand Prize-Poetry
Category I
Calvin Hargis, Age 8
Bugnibble
Calvin’s winning poem was the first poem he ever wrote. His second-grade class in Aztec, New Mexico (in the Animas River watershed) went to a local park to look at leaves. Diane Mittler, their teacher, told them to write down what they saw. He saw a ladybug chewing on a leaf so he wrote down words about that. When asked if he liked writing poetry, Calvin replied, “No, it’s too hard to write poetry.” Calvin doesn’t want to be a poet when he grows up, he wants to be an actor.
When Calvin won the River of Words contest, his friends thought it was great. His teacher even gave a picnic in his honor. But for Calvin, the best part of winning was the trip to Washington, DC.
2000 Grand Prize-Poetry
Category II
Gracie Jordan, Age 12
Swim in Me
Gracie’s winning poem was the result of a class assignment. Her teacher, Carlo Cerruti, told his sixth-grade class to write three or four poems and then select one to submit to the River of Words contest. Gracie decided that she didn’t like any of the ones she had written, so she wrote a new one. In her new poem, “Swim in Me,” she tried to convey a water cycle, from big to small. She got the idea to shape the poem like a meandering river from looking at the poem of last year’s international winner, Ru-Woei Foong whose poem was written in the shape of the Chinese character for water.
Gracie didn’t think she had a chance of winning, especially when her teacher read the class some winning poems from last year’s contest and the ones he read “were awesome.” She thought her poem was cool, but the poems he read were “really, really good.”
In an article about her in the “San Jose Mercury News” after she won the River of Words contest Gracie describes her poem as “Mother Nature talking to the people of the Earth.” She thinks poetry is fun to write because you can express anything you like. Sometimes she writes “just for homework,” and sometimes she writes “silly poems.” Two of her favorite poets are Shel Silverstein and Maya Angelou.
Gracie has a favorite outdoor spot near her house in Northern California (in the Coyote Creek watershed) where there is a huge madrone tree with three large branches. She sits there for hours, sometimes, and just hangs out.
She likes Washington, DC and thinks it’s like a mixture of San Francisco and Palo Alto, two cities near her home. Washington has the same trees as Palo Alto, Gracie notes, and lots of cars, like San Francisco.
Although she likes writing, it’s not “her thing,” and she doesn’t want to be a poet-she wants to be a doctor (pediatrician or surgeon), or perhaps an actress.
2000 Grand Prize-Poetry
Category III
Kevin Maher, Age 12
Rockefeller Wildlife Preserve: Mid-August
Kevin’s dad is a professor of journalism at University of Louisiana at Lafayette and his mom teaches English, French and reading in high school and middle school. Kevin’s mom also teaches at a writing camp every summer where young adults and children write, read, draw, and go on nature walks. Kevin has gone to this writing camp for several years. He expecially loves reading science fiction.
Kevin’s mom showed him the information about the River of Words contest and he decided to enter. Then he sat down to think about which watersheds (the contest theme) were important to him. Though he lives in the Vermillion Bayou watershed, he thought of Grand Isle, Louisiana, where he and his family go regularly, but instead decided to write about Rockefeller Wildlife Preserve, another of the family’s favorite spots. He chose the Rockefeller Preserve to write about because he and his dad always go crabbing there. (Kevin loves crabbing, he says.) And, he reasoned, not many people write about crabbing, so he thought it would make an original topic for a poem.
His mom helped him to get started by reminding him how to write a poem. When asked if he could explain how to go about writing a poem for someone who might not have his experience and exposure to poets and to poetry, he said he thought maybe the most important ingredient was reading. “You have to like to read a lot,” he stressed.
Kevin’s Tips for Writing Poetry:
- Look around and find a place that you like a lot, or choose to focus on an object.
- Think about the thing or the place before writing about it.
- Try to describe something about the flora and fauna (plants and animals) and specific species of the place.
- Jot down some metaphors [Editor’s Note: Metaphors are comparisons of two unlike things that help us see them in new ways- “the oak tree was on old friend,” for instance. Metaphors give meaning and help us create vivid mind pictures-just what poets want!]
- Think some more and try putting it together into poetry.
- Add some finishing touches.
- Read it aloud.
- Spend some time revising, to make it better.
Kevin didn’t think he had a very good chance of winning the contest and his mom told him not to get his hopes up. But a friend and poet, Sandy Lyne, read Kevin’s poem and said, “Kevin, there’s no way you’re not going to win.”
The River of Words prize trip was Kevin’s second visit to Washington, DC. He thinks it’s a good city. Why? Because it’s the capital of the nation and pretty quiet.
Kevin sees poetry as being a part of his future but he hopes to become a biologist or ecologist. Then, as he said in an interview for “The Baton Rouge Advocate” after winning the contest, his trips out to the wilderness of Louisiana can become “more frequent and more purposeful - for the good of science and the environment.”
2000 Grand Prize-Poetry
Category IV
Kt Harmon, Age 17
Dear Aquarius
Kt (that’s her nom de plume, her writer’s name) wrote her winning poem, “Dear Aquarius,” for a class assignment. She submitted a poem to the River of Words contest last year, too. Her teacher at the boarding school she attends in Vicksburg, Mississippi is Greg Sellers, who happens to be the father of the 1998 River of Words Grand Prize poetry winner, Tyler Sellers. Kt’s school is in the Lower Mississippi/ Lower Yazoo watershed.
Kt didn’t think she had a chance of winning the contest. In fact, she didn’t even think that anyone would read her poem, so when she found out that she’d won, she was very surprised. “It was kind of an ego-booster,” she confided.
Kt declined to discuss the meaning of her poem. She wants it to mean something different for each person who reads it; she believes that poetry is for individual interpretation. [Editor’s Note: The River of Words judges thought that the “Aquarius” of the poem was a creek.] Kt loves writing and, especially writing poetry. “Poetry found me,” she said. “It’s my passion. I’ve been writing since I was nine or ten and I have filled six journals since the 6th-grade. Writing is my favorite thing to do-all my friends know that. They always come into my room and find me writing.”
Teacher Greg Sellers described Kt’s dedication to her craft, saying she wrote thirteen or fourteen drafts of “Dear Aquarius.” He also remarked on her love of words: “I remember the day she came into class and told me she had found the perfect word for her poem-rill-she was ecstatic.” [Editor’s Note: The line “rilled through silted grass” was the judges’ favorite line in the poem.]
Kt also believes writing helps her to solve problems. “I write stream-of-consciousness,” she said. “Sometimes, I have a tough time communicating verbally but not in writing. I get it written out and then I know how I feel.”
This is Kt’s first trip to the Nation’s Capital and she really likes it. “It feels full of life.” She doesn’t want to be a professional poet but knows she wants to live in New York City and be a physical therapist, or a psychologist, journalist, photographer, a special ed teacher, or go into broadcasting.
2000 Grand Prize-Art
Category I
Angel Salto, Age 6
Trees
Angel lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the Northern Long Island watershed. He said he painted his winning picture because his teacher, Mr. Goldstein, told him to. “He told me just to go slow and to take my time.” Asked how he felt when he found out he’d won the River of Words contest, he replied, “happy!” and his wide smile proved it.
2000 Grand Prize-Art
Category II
Rachel Rees, Age 9
As Quick as My Thought
Rachel got the idea for her winning painting because every year her family goes fishing at Eagle Lake, near her home in Susanville, California. She loves to fish there for rainbow trout. “I made them jumping in my painting because I never see them jump,” she said. Both of Rachel’s parents are artists and Rachel’s mom read about the contest on the Internet when Rachel’s elementary school asked her to lead their watershed study project last October. She found River of Words’ website and when the school couldn’t fit River of Words into their schedule, she encouraged Rachel and her brothers Ryan and River [what an appropriate name!] to enter on their own.
Rachel herself got the call from River of Words’ director Pamela Michael on April 1 [no joke!], telling her she’d won. “She asked to speak to my mom,” Rachel recalled, “but she was on her way back from Reno, so I told her she wasn’t home. She asked if I was Rachel, and then told me I’d won. I screamed and jumped up and down and couldn’t wait to tell my parents.”
Rachel began painting at the age of two. She paints everyday because she likes to-it gives her a good feeling. She and her brothers have their own computer in their room and she sometimes uses Photoshop to create art. (Photoshop is a computer program that allows you to draw or “paint,” or alter photographs.) She wants to be an artist when she grows up, and maybe an archeologist, too. She has a favorite place near where she lives (in the Honey-Eagle Lakes watershed). It is a secret place that even her brothers don’t know about-no one but her best friend. “It’s a nice quiet place to sit and listen to the stream and the birds, and to draw.”
2000 Grand Prize-Art
Category III
Shintaro Maeda, Age 14
Winter Creek
Shintaro was born in Montreal, moved to Michigan, to Toronto, and then to Kansas where his Dad is an aeronautical engineer. Shinatro’s parents were born in Japan, and he spends every summer there, studying kendo (Japanese fencing), and visiting relatives. He speaks both English and Japanese. His twin sister, Uta, likes to write but Shintaro likes to paint and sketch, which he has been doing since he was very young. He took some art classes in school but considers himself self-taught. Drawing and painting come naturally to him, he says. He also plays the saxophone and just recently started guitar. Jazz is his favorite type of music. He also enjoys soccer and karate.
Shinatro’s English teacher, Jennifer Fry, offered 10 extra-credit points for any student who entered the River of Words contest, so Shinatro decided to paint Chisolm Creek, an area near his home in Wichita (in the Middle Arkansas River watershed), where his family often goes on walks. He likes Chisolm Creek because it is peaceful. There weren’t any mallard ducks the day he sketched, but he added them later because always saw them in the lake behind his house. He finished the painting in two days and was surprised to win. He said his friends were “pretty happy for me, I guess.”
River of Words is not the first contest Shintaro has won-in 1992 he won First Place (and a trip to Japan with his parents) in a national drawing contest sponsored by a Japanese newspaper. In 1993, when he was eight years old, he wrote and illustrated a book, “Thomas Raccoon’s Fantastic Airshow,” that was chosen for publication by Landmark Editions as the grand prize of their “Written & Illustrated By.....” Contest. And in 1994, his block print of the Wright Brothers’ airplane won The Experimental Aircraft Association’s Sport Aviation Art Competition.
Shintaro wants to be an airplane designer when he’s older. He flies regularly, as his father’s co-pilot in a small plane.
2000 Grand Prize-Art
Category IV
Eon Justin Hatter, Age 15
Heal the World
Like many River of Words’ entries, Eon’s winning artwork was the result of a class assignment. For two years in a row, Eon’s art teacher at his school outside Atlanta, Georgia (in the Upper Ocmuglee watershed) was Pamela Segers , the River of Word’s 2000 Teacher of the Year. Ms. Segers gave the class high-quality color markers to work with and Eon started to get really good at using them-so much so, that the class began calling him “King of the Markers.” When he began his River of Words’ entry, he started thinking about the assignment and playing around with the markers, experimenting with different compositions, until he did one that everyone agreed was really good. Then his original drawing was stolen. He was angry and disappointed and thought he wouldn’t be able to enter the contest. Ms. Segers encouraged him, pleaded with him to start over, even though it was just before the deadline. “She told me I could do just as good a picture but maybe not take the time to include as much stuff in it-not so many animals maybe.” When asked about the benevolent looking face in the sky of his winning picture, “Heal the World,” he said: “There’s someone always looking down on us and the face symbolizes that.”
He really wanted to win so he could go to Washington, DC. He thought he had a good chance of winning because of the positive reactions from his friends and teachers at school. “It’s gone through my mind a couple of times,” he commented, “that I can be an artist when I grow up because of the recognition I’ve gotten from this contest and a few other art contests that I’ve won.”
“Ms. Segers is real supportive. She just lets me sit in class and work on something. I’d breeze through the assignments and she’d let me work on something else. When I needed markers, she’d go to the store and get them for me. [Editor’s Note: Out of her own pocket.] When I was nine or ten, I used to always do junk in elementary school, but never thought I’d be really good at art. Ms. Segers brought it out of me. She helped me to focus on my art more-convinced me I could really do something with it.”
Eon already makes money on his art. He is known as an artist among his friends and they commission art from him. For example, a friend of his paid him to draw a picture and make a map for a report. Eon received $11 and credit for his work.
Eon is also good at wrestling and thinks he might be able to get an athletic scholarship to college. He likes baseball and football, too.
2000 International Grand Prize
Christine Yin, Age 14
Baiji
Christine was born in Houston, Texas. Her parents were born in Taiwan. When she was one and a half, her family went back to Taiwan for seven years and then they moved to China, where they now live in Guangzhou.
Poetry is Christine’s “preferred method of writing.” She began writing poetry in 3rd grade, around the same time she started to learn English in Shanghai, at the American International School. Her winning poem, “Baiji,” started with a first draft in English class. Christine had been studying about the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in science. She found the International Rivers Network ‘s website on the internet and learned about the baiji, the endangered Yangtze River dolphin. She contacted Doris Shen at International Rivers Network by email and asked some questions about the dam and the baiji. Christine likes animals and writing so she decided to put the two together in a poem. Her teacher, Amy Shawver, (also the teacher of a previous International Prize winner, Jeff Hwang, in 1998 when she was teaching in Bangladesh) helped with grammatical and spelling corrections and gave Christine suggestions on how to express herself more clearly. It took five drafts before Christine was satisfied with her work. Ms. Shawver cautioned her not to have high hopes about winning because someone from China, Ru-Woei Foong, had won the International Prize the year before. Then, months later, came the email, telling her she had won!
The highlight of Christine’s visit to Washington, DC was the canoe trip on the Anacostia River with Josh Ungar and the folks from the Anacostia Watershed Society , [note to ASAP: please have “Anacostia Watershed Society” be a link to their page, at www.anacostiaws.org— thank you!] who are working to clean and protect the river. She had been canoeing once before on Golden Lake in Guangzhou but she was afraid of falling in because the water was so dirty and full of sewage. In comparison, she thought the Anacostia River was clean. No river dolphins, though!
