Well done to all who entered, for your hard work and creativity!
A special congrats to Tate Hussey and Miranda Madsen-Orr, who have qualified as finalists! Over 600 students across the country entered. Miranda and Tate are two of the ten finalists in their age category. WOW! Congratulations!
Category: Grades 10-12
Age: 16
From: Vancouver, B.C.
School: Lord Byng Secondary School
Character: Richard III
From the play: Richard III
Topic: Donald Trump's presidency
“The Season of Anger and Lies”
The year is 2016. The country is torn by civil strife. Police roam the streets hunting young men. The country’s factories lie idle while a hopeful dictator waits in the wings.
Enter Richard J. Trump III, Duke of New York
This is the season of loathing and anger
The age of diminished belief
This is the dawn of a well-traveled path
To a new commander in chief
[Aside]
’tis a time for men of boastful deceit
When money’s to be had for claim
From the pockets of those who toiled and lost
To men with billions to gain
Hear me you poor and humbled men
I direct you to witness the stain
Of foreigners darkening our every door
And our country groveling in shame
[Aside]
Much do they mock me – those high-minded fools
Mock my tiny hands and hair
But I will avenge every remark
When I perch at the White House chair
Long have you waited, you people of Walmart
While the world passed you by with distain
For the chance to strike at the bankers of Wall Street
And the woman who speaks in their name
[Aside]
The bigger the lie the further it travels
I tweet fictions deep into the night
Till those losers devour every slippery word
And absorb fake news with delight
It is a time to wall out the strangers
Tell the world this is our land to claim
To bury science beneath the weight of religion
And Make America Great Again
Category: Grades 10-12
Age: 15
From: Vancouver, B.C.
School: Lord Byng Secondary School
Character: Caesar
From the play: Julius Caesar
Topic: 2016: The warmest year ever
“We are gods”
What sight!
To look upon these deeps and bounds,
and see them bow.
What mighty kings are we!
For every scrub, every petal, every paw,
to lay their brow upon our soil
and cry out:
Mercy!
Oh! and how we battle for this grip on greatness,
holding hurricanes down with rope and chain,
fighting wildfire with but knuckle and bone.
How clever are we?
to have turned mother earth onto herself.
From our shining hand
births every crack webbing across the wild,
and when it shatters,
We will use its shards as gems in our crowns.
Such power!
That even the mighty sea,
in all her foaming rage,
drags herself across the sand
to lay eyes upon our divine hands,
that create divine machines,
great enough that even riptides must succumb.
It is these hands
that reach into the night,
and tangle the strings holding constellations in the sky.
Our hands,
who may rip the head off
even the lion,
so the blood may rouge our cheeks,
and smear across the the sky,
hazing the world in crimson.
Such glory!
To play with the hues of oxygen.
We are gods!
And no knife may puncture our breast,
for it is forged in iron.
We are gods!
Who may burn the earth red hot and raging,
just to make shade a little sweeter.
We are gods!
And for that the earth must bow.
