Silent Screams
Searching for the light
He fell into darkness
His screams were not heard
– Zia Black
The Story Behind Silent Screams
I wrote Silent Screams when I was around 13 years old, and I still love this poem over twenty years later. I didn’t plan to write it. Our English teacher said we were entering a children’s poetry competition for students. Most of the class, including me, didn’t want to do it, but we had no choice. We had one weekend to write a poem to submit. I started thinking…
The next afternoon, I wrote Silent Screams. It was supposed to be a Haiku, a Japanese-style poem. Haikus are usually based on a certain number of syllables per line. It was hard trying to meet such a narrow criteria, but it turned out pretty well!
Being published in a poetry book was the competition’s big prize. Submissions came from many schools. My poem was chosen! It was my first time being published. Ordering copies of the book and seeing my poem in there was exciting! I didn’t see my work in print again for over ten years.