Greenwood 8th Grader Nabs Poetry Honor

For Greenwood School eighth grader Olivia Rudd, her participation in the California Coastal Commission's annual California Coastal Art & Poetry Contest was far from "a terrible conclusion coming to a clashing halt."

That turn of phrase, among many more, garnered Rudd the to poetry prize among 7th to 9th graders in the contest. Seven other Marin students achieved honorable mention recognition in the contest. Their names are below Rudd's poem:

"Breaking Wave": 

It was an ebb and flow of eternity
a solitary moment isolated stretched out so thin
breaking and crashing and wildly suggesting
what could have should have been
it was a sound of crashing and foaming
a symphony of timelessness of notes strung together
and written in the sands
it was a color
flashy glimpses
and deepness so dark it couldn't be seen 
it was a caught shadow on a hot day
and a rhythm and reminder
of lines woven together into a chaos of liberty 

it was a little bit of nothingness
something not said
a terrible conclusion coming to a clashing halt
and dissolving into sparkles and glimmers simply remnants long forgotten
an irritation of otherwise undisturbed ocean 


Olivia Rudd 
8th grade, Mill Valley

Honorable Mentions:

• Maya T. 3rd grade, Fairfax, “Understanding a Whale” (last name withheld from press)
• Martha Quirie, 3rd grade, Fairfax, “The Wave”
• Remy Rosenberg, 6th grade, Sausalito, “Garden Hose Nose”
• Tallula Sorst, 4th grade, Corte Madera, “Porpoises of the Sea”
• Rex D. Collenette, 7th grade, San Geronimo, “Lunch for a Gull”
• Sequoia Meadows, 8th grade, Fairfax, “Waves”
• Audrey Webster, 8th grade, San Anselmo, “Into the Blue”