Grand Prize
My Greatest Triumph
By: Joseph Newman
It’s November of 2010, and I’m sitting there thinking of what to write for my AP Language and Composition class. There is no topic, but requirements lurk overhead. I had to put in an homage and an overriding theme. Inspiration soon dawned upon me, and in that frantic frenzy of pure imagination, my hands swept across the keyboard, creating a world of science and fiction, a world where all seemed to be falling to the nearly unstoppable enemy. My mind worked frantically around the terms and the story, and soon Reluctant Triumph was born.
The short story followed Zebulon, the son of the General charged with protecting the planet Erosion from the Herrschaft Clan. The Clan had locked Erosion from the rest of the universe, and was wiping all life from the universe as they saw it. Zebulon was charged by his father to take a mysteriously acquired data tape to the planet Earth, where the human headquarters resided. However, by doing so, Zebulon would infringe on the terms of cease-fire between the Herrschaft and Erosion. The Herrschaft would then wipe the planet out without thinking as Zebulon moved forward with the General’s plan. Although at first Zebulon hated this plan, Zebulon eventually figured out that the sacrifice of his people saved the rest of the human race from the Herrschaft. As Zebulon said, “Less civilian lives were being lost, and it was the destruction of Erosion that made it that way. Because of the sacrifice of my people, we were now carving the path to the final victory.”
Oh, how this piece has changed my life! When my creative spree ended with that last line, I prepared it to be presented to my group in English the next day, thinking only of how great I thought it had turned out. Soon the unit we were working on was over, and Reluctant Triumph – named so because Zebulon was reluctant to leave his people to die – fell into the shades of “I know it exists, but I’m not thinking about it all the time” in my brain. However, it was brought forth to the peak of my memory when my teacher, Mr. Colin Kohlmeier, wrote on the piece. He told me that he felt that it was great and that I had great potential as an author. My day – no, my life – was partially completed when I read that.
That same year, the school’s Writing Center (of which I continue to contribute to), was trying out something new: a Literary and Arts Magazine. I sent in Reluctant Triumph, and to my overwhelming joy, it was accepted and published in the magazine. As I turned the pages of the paper booklet, I trembled with excitement to see the title on the table of contents and my labor on pages that I did not format or print.
That experience fired up my imagination and told me one thing: I DO have the potential to fulfill my life goal of getting published in something nationally recognized. When that day comes, my triumph shall not be reluctant.
First Place
Through My Looking Glass
By: Max Black
Footsteps hit the cement, pitter patter goes the rain, a voice sings in the distance, a man paints a picture, a model walks the runway, an author creates a new world. These all are unique to every person and thing. People and animals live within the same world co-existing. We do not always realize this, except when we are forced to think. We all have our looking glass. We hold it up to our eyes and examine the world; when the world goes through our glass it is distorted and recreated into what will coincide with our thoughts. Man has craved the ability to switch our looking glasses thus creating story, subsequently transforming it into music, books, and art. We created this skill to be able to switch looking glasses. Many people do not realize this until later on in life. My first epiphany didn’t happen until earlier this year while I was writing my rhetoric usage paper.
In writing my rhetoric usage paper, written in MLA format, showed me that writing isn’t story; but story is writing, and we all have our own looking glass. My essay is titled “A Dying Life Form”. It speaks of rhetoric as a creature that is playful and misunderstood. Not this dry senseless being that everyone depicts it to be. The essay is not perfect due to its grammatical errors, but it paints a beautiful picture. It takes quotes from a letter that Albert Einstein once wrote and shows the simple parts of rhetoric and how logos, ethos, and pathos all operate within the essay. Although simple sounding this essay changed my whole perspective; it showed me that everyone perceives the world in a different way. I called this concept The Looking Glass. This idea is not new however; many fields address it such as art and writing.
Art itself has the saying “the eye of the beholder”; where many different authors, one in particular named Lewis Carroll titled a book, “Through the Looking Glass”. This statement and title both show that this looking glass concept is alive. The interpretation for everyone will be different. Where some people may call Vincent Van Gogh a genius, others may call him a loon. Yet still this is the same person and subject. This idea is fascinating to me and I am baffled at how many people do not realize that they live within this paradigm.
Throughout my life I always thought people think the same, but this is not so. I was never fully aware that there are many reasons to blame misinterpretation on. This one essay has completely given my life new understanding with my train of thought, down to my writing. I have now made it a goal of mine to express and share this idea, to help the next generation better understand the world before us.
