Sarah Brennan is an Australian children’s author, who has become famous for organising Clever Competitions for student writers from different age groups. Her latest Clever Competition was all about “Hair-Raising Halloween Poems”.
The 127 entries in this round came from 29 schools around the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and the UK. Two Grade 5 students from CIS Lakeside, Aria Fafat and Annette Shabana Dass participated in the competition with their terrifying poems.
Aria placed first in the hotly-contested Years 4 to 6 category. Sarah described Aria’s entry as an “exceptional free verse poem, full of fabulous vocabulary, vivid imagery, poetic style and a horrifying ending”. Congratulations to the talented young writers Aria and Annette!
Read Aria’s prize winning poem, and share your compliments on this page.
THE SILENT CALL OF HALLOWEEN
It’s a blood-curdling night, necromancy threaded into the thin air
Bloody hags drift about, aimlessly, pointlessly
Pale and lifeless, I walk to a tenebrous house, its cracked windows beguiling
Dragging me in, a powerful aura; I step inside…
In a maze, I am, trapped, nowhere to go
A never-ending rollercoaster, chilling my heart with despair and anguish
My hands find a bag, opulent with blood-red sweets,
I open one; it’s even more enticing… my mouth’s afire…
A skeletal hand snakes through looming corridors,
Holding a pumpkin, mush dripping from its mouth and eyes, like a waterfall of guilt
Watching my heart quicken and sweat in agony.
Take me… Help me, it pleads; unwillingly, I reach out for it…
A black silence engulfs me, whispering secrets of the unknown.
The wind whips me with answers…to swirling questions never asked
I know now why I am here, how I am here.
It’s Halloween, I have been Summoned; it is now the time to Scare…Them.