Young writers put Oak Park on the poetry map of Illinois

Alta Nekrosius, 9, a fourth grader at Lincoln School, stands with her copy of the 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards chapbook during an awards ceremony Sept. 14 at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Alta’s poem, “Mount Eve,” was one of four by Oak Park students honored in the statewide contest. (Nekrosius family) Oak Park seems to be a special town for poets, especially those enrolled in elementary school. Two Oak Park students won at their grade level in the statewide 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards, and another two more received honorable mentions. Third grade winner Cecelia Carson, second grade winner Athena Saleh and first grade honorable mention winner Lorenzo Diaz are from The Children’s School. Alta Nekrosius, 9, now in the fourth grade at Lincoln School, won an honorable mention among third graders. What made their success all the more impressive was the competition as there were a record 988 submissions representing more than 150 schools statewide. Gwendolyn Brooks began the Youth Poetry Awards in 1969 during her tenure as Illinois Poet Laureate and continued to administer the awards until her death in 2000. The awards were born out of Brooks’s belief that a poet laureate “should do more than wear a crown — (she) should be of service to the young,” according to a news release. Illinois Humanities, in partnership with Brooks Permissions, the Poetry Foundation, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, sponsored the annual competition for Illinois poets in grades kindergarten through 12. Nekrosius used her own memories to write “Mount Eve,” the poem that earned her an honorable mention. “My dad’s dad has a cabin in Wisconsin, in the woods. I named the poem after Mount Eve and we like to climb it,” Alta said. “This wasn’t my first poem. It was kind of hard coming up with an idea but once I wrote it, it was kind of easy,” she said. Given it is Wisconsin, Mount Eve “Is more like a small bluff,” Alta said, but it’s still quite relaxing. […]

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