Lincoln Prep Student Wins Poetry Contest at PoeFest

Lincoln Prep April 3, 2024 -

Lincoln Prep is celebrating the amazing achievement of 8th grader, Lena Gyamfi, who submitted the winning poem of the Student Poetry Competition at the Phoenix PoeFest. This writing competition was open to all Arizona students in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Gyamfi learned of the contest at school. “My [literature and composition] teacher had a poster in her class for four months since the beginning of the school year,” said Gyamfi. “She kept encouraging students to enter.” She decided to enter right before the deadline and we are so glad that she did, enabling her to share her poetry with a state-wide audience.

For the competition, students were asked to create poems that mirrored Edgar Allan Poe’s distinct style, with themes of love, horror, and death. Poe, born in 1809, was an American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of American literature. While Gyamfi admits she wasn’t familiar with his work before the contest, her poem, “The Pain of the Heart” captured the essence of Poe’s technique.

“I was just in class and words began to form in my mind, so I put them down like I usually do,” she recalled. “[The poem] is about the pain people usually feel when they go through a heartbreaking situation, whether with a partner, or with their family, or any kind of situation. Usually, people go through a lot of pain and sometimes they’re not able to express themselves.”

Gyamfi emailed her submission and two weeks later she received a response telling her that she had won the competition. “It was very exciting. I jumped around my whole house and went crazy,” she said.

Enjoy Gyamfi’s award-winning poem below:

The Pain of the Heart

In its own

A wonderful dome

Yet being abused

Continues to be misused

How that is possible

Only you know it’s plausible

Darkness and doom

Shrouds with gloom

Pain of the heart

Would rather be hit with a dart

Pain isn’t fun

And cannot be undone

To avoid it

Is your best bit

But then, desperate

Is worse or is bait

Would rather the pain take

Stronger and do make

Chilly shivers

Tears flow like rivers

Keep away, food, water

All in the name of the pain of the heart

Love, after all is blind

Or I should say, it is bind

Mixed with pretty follies

Cuddles with mean dollies

I do, yet I don’t believe love

But the pain of heart, from above.

Congratulations, Lena! We look forward to seeing many published works from you in the future.

Do you have a story or know of a story that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts?  Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.