PoemsForYou.com
Title
Poems for You Homepage
Description
People have been composing poems since they learned to talk. Love poems are the most famous, from Shakespeare's sonnets to the Backstreet Boys' latest hit. Today, in West Africa, people train from birth to sing songs in praise of their historical heroes and their current leaders. From Jewel to Allen Ginsberg to the timeless poetry of Emily Dickinson, poetry is still alive and expressing our feelings about the events that move us.
When my sister married in 1996, it was no ordinary occasion. She had fallen deeply in love with a terrific person and was ready to make a life with him. They loved each other so much that I thought of the Hebrew word "Ahava," which means love, and composed for them. The result was "On Our Wedding: Ahava." In 1997, at the urging of family and friends, I submitted the poem to the Blue Mountain Arts Third Tri-Annual Poetry Contest, and won first prize out of 14,000 entries.
In September 2000, I submitted a poem a second time to the twelfth tri-annual Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest and again won first prize. The poem "Wedding Dance," written for another happily married couple, wowed the judges and stood out from 50,000 entries.
