‘The Boys Who Play Sports’ by Ben White
The Montclair Literary Festival is presented by Succeed2gether, an afterschool
tutoring program for students in grades K-12. The slam — spoken word poetry — included students from Montclair High School and the town’s middle schools.
We’re interested in hearing from you as well — please send us your published or performed
student writing from literary magazines and other school and neighborhood organizations!
For inquiries write to culture@montclairlocal.news.
The first-place winner of the high school section was Davida Task, then a junior, for “Generational Trauma Comes through a Hole in the Wall.” She preferred not to publish her poem.
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READ: LOCAL WRITING; 'BECAUSE I'M BLACK' BY KHAILYN HUGHES-SELLERS
READ: LOCAL WRITING; 'POSIE IN ANDERSON PARK' BY SUKIE GRABCHEWSKI
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“The Boys who Play Sports” by then-senior Ben White, won second place in last spring’s high school section of the slam:
Sometimes I think about ants
Not often, but I do
When the thought arises, it is always in the negative
It vexes me how seamlessly they can blend into nearly any background
Without the need to think twice about how the foreground might react
They can enter any painting and neither add nor subtract a thing
A dull taupe across their new setting
Why the artist chooses to add them beats me
I suspect it’s because their nature is innocuous yet their presence somehow conjures angst
And it’s not like I too, can’t march in the ant parade
But they will know I am a termite, an imposter, a fool
A faggot
If I stick out like a sore thumb, then they are the other nine digits
Unsullied, pristine almost
You don’t even know them but you know, somehow, that they belong in their exact places
Square blocks in square holes that can sand off their edges to fit into a circle at will
I am not yet prepared to face my own inability to join them because they fear that I will pounce on them
As the praying mantis that they fear I am
The irony lies in the fact that in most of the tales I’ve heard, we are not the ones praying
They pray on the ants that are darker than them
Who walk on the paths, in between the grass blades, across from them
Keeping to themselves and yet they are preyed on mercilessly
Engulfed in media trenches and whittled down to the least they can be
Until eventually they can be stomped on
Squished with the boot of a thousand, belittling voices
But there is something more positive there
Not admiration
No, never that
Maybe it’s longing
Desire, passion
To maybe join their parade
Sometimes I think about boys
Straight boys who do unspeakable things to boys like me
Not often, but I do