Login

 

Mathematik
Romanistik
Französich
Italienisch
Spanisch

The Night of Reading 2022 and Advanced Creative Writing at Kantonsschule Wettingen

To wrap up this year of stories, poems and drafts yet to finish, the students of the Advanced Creative Writing course had the wonderful opportunity to get together for a laid-back night of reading our own texts and enjoying a snack. After a break of two years, on the 27th of April, our school’s lovely assembly hall (Aula) was once again open to friends, family, and to anyone with a knack for writing to come and listen to the fourteen Advanced Creative Writing students presenting their texts in this year’s Night of Reading.

With the help of our teacher and editor, Ms Sara D. Nyffenegger, we spent this year crafting our texts, sometimes – although very hesitantly – even sharing them with our peers. Events like this give many young writers the opportunity to present and perform what they have worked hard to create. Putting your thoughts into words can be a very personal thing, so, to many of us reading them out loud can be a very gratifying but also an exhilarating occasion. Especially with regards to the prompts of the Swiss Creative Writing Prize which we received for the 2022 competition. Starting in December up until the very beginning of April we put our heads down to brainstorm and come up with poems about identity and short stories based on the word offline. Each year the Advanced Creative Writing course at KWSE steps up to the challenge and submits many wonderful and successful texts to the competition.

This year’s audience had the pleasure to listen to prize winning stories and poems, such as the poems of last year’s winner, Imè Esenam (G3A). She not only won 1st prize for her poem Black coffee or To all the girls with hard to swallow names, but also claimed 2nd prize with To be black, to be woman. Jil Hug (G3C) got to read her short story Trapeze Act, which was short listed in 2021, as well as a new story, Radio Silence, with which she reached 3rd place in this year’s competition. The school also placed well in the poetry section this year, as Carole Meier took home the 2nd prize for her poem Nothing Left, and both Vrinda Arora (G2A) and Sulamith Tamborriello (G4A) were short-listed. The night was a success and after an hour of listening to different genres of writing, the evening came to a close with lively chatting and engaging discussions accompanied by a tasty apéro riche.

We were excited to welcome everyone back to our campus this year after the pandemic and are already looking forward and working towards getting to invite you again to next year’s Night of Reading.

(Text: Carole Meier, G2C / Photo: Sara Nyffenegger)

 

Black coffee or To all the girls with hard to swallow names by Imè Esenam

(1st place at the Swiss Creative Writing Prize Competition, Poetry, 2021)

 

To all the girls with hard to swallow names

The names we never find on water bottles and coffee cups,

The names people shake their heads at

The names that so quickly turn into a joke like they have no worth

The names they don’t even try to pronounce

And in exchange turn it to whatever they want

The names that go from Chimamanda to Mandy or Consuela to Ella

Like black coffee diluted with sugar and cream to Starbucks lattes,

So, they can bare to swallow it whole

The ones that get called complicated and dismissed

When asking to be called by their names that are gifts

And in return say sorry

The ones that now have apologies for names

 

Your name might not be a Starbucks latte, that teenage girls down so easily

But it’s black coffee, one so strong people shy away from it,

Never getting rewarded with its richness

Your name holds power in every drop

The very drops your ancestors prayed for

So don’t apologise for your name, when its meaning has saved so many before

Don’t dumb it down so it fits the shackless of society

It’s the only gift you’ll get without being expected to return the favour

Although you are much more than your name

It’s your crown so wear it with pride

Wear it high and don’t let anyone take away its shine

It’s not being complicated, it’s called having self-respect

So, if you didn’t offer it with sugar and cream, don’t accept it when they add their own

Or simply said ‘say it right or don’t say it at all’

 

Nothing Left by Carole Meier

(2nd place at the Swiss Creative Writing Prize Competition, Poetry, 2022)

 

Smaller and smaller was the goal.

To have Control.

No matter what toll it took on me,

I wanted to be pretty.

This idiotically simple thought

God, all it brought was pain

I never meant to change what’s on the inside,

To keep what made me Me,

Only to change what Others see.

Watch me get destroyed by this impossible task

I thought becoming popular could fill this void

But to bask in such glory just wasn’t for me

Childish dreams

So dumb and naïve

 

People ask who you are

But who are we to say how anyone should be

I thought I liked who I was, so why did no one agree

They’d never see the one I liked, truly, myself

I want this to stop

I want it to end

Shelf my needs, be strong now, pretend

Act as they do

Dress like they dress

Eat what they eat

No Extras

No Flaws

No Comments, just peace

So instead of wearing this face proudly as mine

I chose the path of least resistance, to hide.

A hollow mask I slipped behind,

But an empty stomach, an empty mind.

 

At first it filled me with pride, what I had made.

Discipline made me feel full ‘til it was too late.

So as the color of my skin started to fade

And counting and comparing took a hold,

As my world steadily went bleak and cold,

I realized what kind of person I’d become.

My emotions boiled down and my mind went numb.

What I used to love so much before,

Suddenly, none of it even mattered anymore.

It all went away

All out of my Control

 

Being low made me feel high

Piece by piece I replaced reason with a Lie

I’ve seen the statistics, I know I could die

But it’s just so hard to let go you know

It had so much patience, it started so slow

The Routine, it took root

And those tiny Restrictions still looked so cute

It’s simple, just a little bit less each time

And resign to my thoughts no longer being mine

Over time It even becomes less and less of a crime

 

For a long time now who i see is not me

As a child i had a clear Image of who i wanted to be

i Imagined this Person of divine Beauty and Grace

I don’t recognize this Face

What the mirror shows has changed

Closer to what i Wanted, but somewhat estranged

Deranged, Who i see is no longer me

 

Hollow cheeks

Hollow eyes

Hollow soul

The Hollowness took me,

It swallowed me whole

It ate me up, left nothing in my place

An empty Shell

and of me?

No longer a trace

0
0