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Contests

Found Poem Favorite | ‘Anxious Mind’

Christy Altomare in the musical “Anastasia,” a show filled with internal conflicts.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

We are honoring the top winners of our Eighth Annual Found Poem Student Contest by publishing their work from June 13 to July 3. You’ll be able to read the whole collection here as we go.

Below, a piece by Amelia D’Avanzo from Arizona, taken from a 2017 theater review, “‘Anastasia,’ a Russian Princess With an Identity Crisis.”

__________

Anxious Mind

Distant times and foreign lands

do not naturally lend themselves

to perky song and dance

when the mind wanders.

The one reminiscing is the

one who has lost her memory

of an animated spectacle

with talking animals

that dance around her.

It’s a challenge not to wince,

as she trembles nonstop with internal conflicts

and has a hard time squeezing

into the corsets of songs

that bear her name.

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