Flathead poets, essayists make a national mark

The creative writing talents of Flathead High School students are gaining respect across the nation.

More than 160 poems and short essays found their way into print during the 2003-2004 school year.

There have been 62 so far this year.

Eighty-two students submitted 475 poems to this year's local Crail-Carr contest (see related story).

And poetry by Flathead students is among the most-published in "A Celebration of Young Poets, Rocky Mountain Region." The prestigious hard-bound volume, produced by Creative Communications, recognizes the work of students from Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

In that publication, each of the top 10 students receives a page dedicated solely to his or her work. In fall 2003, two of those top-10 pages were devoted to Flathead students. In each of the two volumes produced last spring and summer, they captured one of the top-10 pages.

"And that one is so important because there are so many entries," Flathead High poetry, composition and English teacher Shannon O'Donnell said. "They receive tens of thousands of poems, and less than 50 percent get published."

All told, FHS Writing Center director Kitty Stoner has researched and posted 38 writing competitions this year. Choosing from those, 346 students have submitted 927 entries to eight state and national contests.

Those numbers come, in part, from "nagging" by the teachers who require submissions, senior Chris Bruyer joked.

Largely, though, it's the authors' self-motivation that brings them the satisfaction of published work.

Bruyer, for one, is encouraged by the publication process. Just this year, he submitted his poetry to Creative Communications and to Crail-Carr, and was published in both.

"You don't think yours is any good, so why would someone else?" he said of the rigors he goes through in selecting his poems. "But then you see it in print and you think differently."

"Just to see your name in print and read it and think, 'Wow, that's really my work and that's a real accomplishment right there,'" said Chris Graves, a senior.

He's had four poems in Creative Communications volumes, and another two in the Crail-Carr publication. From a student who, O'Donnell said, used to write only about girls and guy-stuff, he now has changed into a writer who puts remarkable thought into his work.

"Mrs. O'Donnell kept telling me how much I've grown as a poet." Graves was reluctant to elaborate, so his teacher stepped in.

"His whole style and tone has grown and changed and kind of morphed into something better," O'Donnell said - something free-flowing and fluent, she added.

O'Donnell and Stoner often see value long before the students do.

"Chris gave emotions to colors," she said of Bruyer's poem "Color." In it, maroon is glum, green entitles friendship and purple is will-power.

"It had this rhythm you could almost dance to," she said. "He's a rhythm writer."

Josh Hernandez, too, produces poetry that dances with rhyme.

The junior is two for two this year, submitting poems to the Creative Communications and Crail-Carr contests and having both published.

"When I sat down with Mr. O'Neil," Hernandez said of Bob O'Neil, who pours his passion into sponsoring the Crail-Carr contest to honor a pair of former Flathead teachers and encourage new writers, "all the things he asked me to do, I changed. He told me to make them feel what I'm saying, don't just write what my feelings are."

It was a chance to learn not only how, but why, to improve his poetry. Nonetheless, he maintains his own opinions.

"I'm still shocked," he said. "Why did he pick that one? There were ones I thought were better."

Among all Flathead students, 2004 graduate Anthony Kuechmann was the first to have his poetry published this fall - first in The High School Writer, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Minn., and then in The Writer's Slate.

Mindy Pfankuch, a senior, published an essay last year in The High School Writer and two poems this year in the Crail-Carr contest and Creative Communications book.

Theirs are just a couple more examples of the caliber of writing being produced at Flathead High.

Noah Palmer is another. Four of his poems have appeared in a Creative Communications' edition, in The High School Writer and in Teen, Inc.

"It's just a release, I guess," Palmer shrugged. "I write because I don't talk. I write like I'd like to talk. It's my sensitive side."

The senior said that the first time his poetry was published, he didn't like his work. He still doesn't like that poem, even though it followed his preference for writing in a quick, smooth flow.

"I don't like to go back and edit," Palmer said. "If I'm going to write something good, I'm going to do it the first time."

Each student has a unique work method, an individual style, and distinctive reactions to the finished writing.

"We have kids from all walks," Stoner said. "They all write from their own world and every world is different here."

"They may come from a broken home," O'Donnell agreed, "or no home at all."

Yet they produce poetry of value, the teachers said.

Others' interest and involvement can make or break a budding writer.

"Meeting with (O'Neil) was really cool," Graves said of the one-on-one session O'Neil conducts with poets in the Crail-Carr contest. "He went through every line, asked what you think it means. Then he tells you what he thinks it means."

Then O'Neil reads it aloud to the author.

"It was the coolest thing ever to have somebody come back and read my own poem to me."

That type of feedback and the publication that often is involved can be encouraging to a young writer.

But success also can be scary.

"I have kind of a fear, now that I am two for two," Bruyer said of his published-poet status. "What if I don't get anything published in the future, and others do?"

Publication, while a nice perk, is not always an end in itself.

But for Hernandez - who figures that, now that he has been initiated, he will write for a lifetime - poetry is.

"It kind of relieves me when I put it down and nobody can tell me, 'no,'" Hernandez said. "It's kind of my own happy place."

Their success is great for the teachers.

"We're both so blown-away proud," O'Donnell said.

"Any more, these contests see 'Kalispell, Montana,' (on an entry) and they look twice. They expect quality."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com