Keaau Middle School student Jazmeen Mendoza received the Hawaii Island Grand Prize at the 21st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Poetry Awards.
Mendoza’s poem was selected from a field of over 100 entries.
“We are thrilled to receive work of this caliber from this young Hawaiian poet,” said awards coordinator Melinda Gohn.
The annual contest, sponsored by the Maui-based International Peace Poem Project, honors King, the civil rights leader who promoted nonviolent means to achieve social justice and equality.
Mendoza received an aluminum painting donated by Maui artist Chad Paranto and a grand prize certificate from Governor David Ige.
Seven students from the island of Hawaii participated as Golden Circle winners and received Ige certificates. About 20 students received certificates as finalists from former Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim and a limited-edition commemorative poster featuring the Hokule’a double-hulled sailing canoe.
Hokule’a photography courtesy of photographer Justyn Ah Chong, courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society and Oiwi TV.
Hawaii’s First Lady Dawn Ige, Kim and Gohn gave congratulatory speeches and the winners recited their poems on a video, now available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/peacepoem/hawaii2020
Gohn said Mendoza’s winning peace poem, “My Comfort,” is a unique free-verse poem using metaphor to lyrically explore human uncertainties through nature.
The poem begins: “Peace is like a leaf falling from a tree/It makes me feel at home/It’s my friend when I’m alone/There’s no violence in the world. She continues, “a flower opens to see the world/And feel what it’s like to live in it/…when the pain can’t break my smile.” Mendoza concludes: “Peace is like the reflection of the land and the river/It’s my comfort to see what’s to come, of my chapter of life/To bring new hope/And to start again if I have to. .”
Leilia P. Alu-Leslie, a 2020 third-grade student at Hookena Elementary School, was announced as the overall competition finalist and Ka Umeke Ka’eo Public Charter School teacher Ainaaloha Ioane was announced as Dr. King’s Teacher of the Year.
More information about the International Peace Poem Project can be found on the project’s website at peacepoem.org.
