Auditorium Theatre 2018-19 Issue 2 Too Hot to Handel

4 | TOO HOT TO HANDEL | JANUARY 19+20, 2019 POETRY CONTEST Each year, the Auditorium Theatre invites students from across the Chicagoland area to participate in the annual Too Hot to Hande l Poetry Contest, asking them to respond to the prompt “How has my community shaped me?” Three finalists are selected to read their poems on stage before one of the Too Hot performances, including the Student Matinee. Here are the winning entries for 2019! We Are the Drum Written by Sofia Vrajitoru, 7 th grade student at Chicago Waldorf School We are the drum. Beating hearts in rhythmic sync that pound their echo within the walls of our great city. The noise resonates in every ear. It tears through the hesitant silence, like a knife through the heart of injustice. This is how my community has shaped me. People are malleable as clay morphed into a fragile existence by the hands of hope. Community is built on the bricks of not one voice, but many, a tightly woven blanket sewn with intricate threads of purpose, our own flag snapping in the winds of change. A Boy of Many Colors Written by Alex Baldauf, 7 th grade student at Philip Rogers Elementary School I am a boy of many colors, suppressed under a mask of my community with little hue, the cracks of the mask leak little emotion, I’m a bug in a bottle, with little scenery to view, with a mask expressing only laughter and joy, while inside there is sadness and coy, with a hint of anger too, But do not fear me, for I do not show I am a boy of many opinions Some splendid some agreeable Some vile and some wicked There’s a lot of me you don’t know, with little you will never find out, because of a mindset of an endless puzzle I am a boy of many colors, I love those who are bright and dark those who are diverse like wine stains on a white dress And those who blend in like white paint on a blank canvas