NOW OPEN: FALL 1999
"Something Small"
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, and this season the poems will too. Write about something small. It can be a seed, a button, a baby brother's fingernail, the last cracker in the box, a ladybug on the window screen, the sound a pencil makes. It can be a small feeling, like the one you get when you're picked second-to-last. It can be anything at all, as long as it's small and you've looked at it closely.
Poems must arrive by Sunday, October 31. Yes, that's Halloween. Get it in before you go trick-or-treating.
THE RULES
- You must be between 6 and 12 years old on October 31.
- One poem per child, please, on this season's theme.
- Twenty lines or fewer. It doesn't have to rhyme.
- The poem must be your own. A grown-up may type it for you, but please, grown-ups, type exactly what the child wrote, and don't fix it. We would rather read a misspelled poem that is all theirs than a tidy one that is partly yours. We fix spelling ourselves, if we post it, and we ask first.
- A parent or guardian sends the poem from their own e-mail address to [email protected], with the child's first name, age and state. Please don't send last names, towns, schools or addresses until we write back to say your child has won.
- Put the poem right in the body of the e-mail. We can't always open attachments.
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The Prize
There are two age groups, 6 to 8 and 9 to 12, with a first, second and third place in each, and usually a few honorable mentions. Every winner and honorable mention gets a certificate printed on good paper and signed by all three judges. First, second and third place also get a book, which I choose for each winner myself, after reading the poem, and mail from the post office near my library. Winning poems go up on this page with the poet's first name, age and state. I pay the postage out of my own pocket and am glad to, so please don't send money. A thank-you note from the winner is payment enough, and I keep every one.
The Judges
I'm Geraldine Niles, and I'm a children's librarian in Spokane, Washington. Every Tuesday morning I read stories to three-year-olds, and every afternoon I help nine-year-olds find books about sharks. I started the Acorn Prize in the spring of 1998, after a girl at our library handed me a poem about her grandmother's hands, and I realized I had nowhere to put it but my bulletin board. Now I do.
I judge with two dear friends, both retired teachers. Mary Conant taught second grade for thirty-one years and can find the good line in any poem, even when it's hiding at the bottom. Roy Earls taught junior high English for twenty-eight years and is the one of us who notices when a word has been chosen carefully. We each read every poem, we each pick our favorites, and then we meet at my kitchen table with a pot of coffee and argue very politely until we agree.
Tips for Young Poets
 | Look closely. Pick one small thing and look at it for a long time before you write. What color is it really? What does it sound like? What does it remind you of? The best poems we get notice something nobody else noticed. |
| Be exact. Not "a dog," but "our dog, who snores." Not "food," but "the burnt edge of the grilled cheese." |
| You don't have to rhyme. If you love rhyming, go ahead! But don't let the rhyme boss you around. If you catch yourself writing "the cat sat on a hat" when the cat was really on the dryer, put the cat back on the dryer. |
| Read it out loud. To your mom, your brother, your goldfish. You'll hear the parts that are working and the parts that aren't. |
| Stop when it's done. A poem doesn't have to end with a lesson. Some of our favorite winners just stopped, and that was exactly right. |
| Be funny if you want to. Funny poems can win. Ask Carter. |
Read the Winners
| Season | Theme |
Summer 1999  | Water
131 poems from 24 states |
| Spring 1999 | Something I Wonder About
96 poems from 19 states |
| Winter 1998-99 | Night |
| Fall 1998 | Leaves |
| Summer 1998 | An Animal I Know |
| Spring 1998 | My Favorite Place |
The 1998 contests were mostly for children who came into our library, and their winners went up on the bulletin board by the picture books. I'm typing them in as I find time; the winter poems are next.
A Word to Parents and Teachers
Thank you for sharing your children's poems with us. Every poem that comes in is read by all three judges, start to finish, and every child who enters gets a short note back from me, though in a busy season it may take me a few weeks. If your child doesn't win, please tell them that Mary, Roy and I argued over a great many poems that didn't, and that the best thing they can do is write the next one. Teachers are welcome to send a whole class's poems, one per child, from the school's address.
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