Poems for Peace

How awesome!! I hope one day I can be recognized for my 'peace work'. I am so happy for these Bedford kids!!

Poems on peace

BEDFORD TOWNSHIP - Josh Perry certainly never thought he would meet the Dalai Lama.

But the 16-year-old will share the stage with the religious leader Sunday.

The Bedford High School junior received notification earlier this week that a poem he'd written for his honors English class received first place in a contest sponsored by the Washtenaw County Intermediate School District.

For his win, Josh will appear on stage with the Tibetan spiritual leader, Tenzin Gyatso, during his public lecture on sustainability at the University of Michigan's Crisler Arena.

"I was just really surprised," Josh said. "I didn't think the poem would go anywhere because I was just writing it for a grade."

For his poem, "House of Peace," Josh said he used parts of a house to represent how peace is built selecting metaphors such as foundation of truth, walls of trust and windows of openness to explain its structure. Josh said he hopes to learn more about the Dalai Lama when he meets him.

Two other Bedford High School juniors will be recognized for their work. Shane Mendez and Hillary Folk, both 17, will have their poems published with Josh's in a book, which will be presented to the Dalai Lama.

For the competition, students were asked to create poems inspired by the themes of harmony, kindness, sustainability and peace. Participants could select from four categories of poems including a personification poem, house poem, landscape poem and transformation poem and relate the style to one of the four themes.

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PS. Mom you were right, very blog worthy :) Xoxo