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Samuel Long '21 Receives Honorable Mention in the UVa Writer's Eye Contest
Woodberry Forest School is proud to announce that third-form student Samuel Long '21 received an honorable mention in the University of Virginia's Writer's Eye Contest held by the Fralin Museum in 2017. Sam's poem "A Pine in 1939" was inspired by the artwork "Joyous Young Pine" (1944) by Morris Graves.
The contest was judged by poet Jeffery Renard Allen, a faculty member in the creative writing program at UVa who has authored two collections of poetry and two works of fiction. Sam placed in the poetry category for grades 9-12 as an honorable mention out of 186 poems. An awards ceremony will be held at UVa on March 11, 2018.
Inspired by Joyous Young Pine by Morris Graves
A Pine in 1939
A Pine in 1939
by Sam Long
My final hours,
are not to be squandered.
I summit a pine as
The golden sun rises.
A blue glow cast
upon the treetops.
Like water seeping down
their wide trunks
and curved branches
While the ground
remains cold and grey.
The radio blared
the same propaganda.
We know the truth.
There is no hope.
They are coming.
The news from
the German border hit.
The second Great War has begun.
Thousands on the march.
I can do nothing,
I am too young to fight.
I hear it.
The sound of
the Luftwaffe
heralding worse.
A new sound rumbles.
The iron panther approaches.
I look back
at my quaint little
town.
I know, it will never
be the same.
A whistle above me,
a wave of thunder
shakes the ground.
A raging fire
engulfs my home.
I know all is
Lost.
I feel my soul
break,
and ebb away.
I descend,
they’re here.
the sharp pine needles
bayonets,
trying to skewer me
on my way down.
The panther advances
100 yards away.
The panther roars
In front of me now.
I don’t move away.
I embrace the cold treads.
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.